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Going to meet work colleagues for dinner at Drunken Monkey, a place I had strolled past many many times before on Shoreditch High Street and hadn’t even noticed, I was a bit dubious about it being a good Chinese as they are hard to come by. I walked in and was impressed with the layout, sort of pub meets restaurant making it laid back, and the ambient lighting with cool, funky music playing in the background. I sat down and waited quite a long time before the waitress came over to take our drinks order for the two of us whilst we waited for the rest.

When the other 6/7 people arrived we turned to the menu starving and decided to order portions of Singapore noodles some with prawns and some with chicken and drunken monkey noodles which come with pork and chicken and are thicker, less spicy noodles along with chilli salt fried squid, honey smoked crispy chicken, spring rolls and egg fried rice keeping it simple.

The chilli salt fried squid is a firm favourite of mine whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant and Drunken Monkey did not let me down, the seasoning was just right not too hot, not overly battered and not over salted and the squid was soft not chewy. Both noodle dishes were delicious too, unlike some noodles I’ve had which are bland, these were full of flavour and had enough vegetables and meat in them and the portions were huge.

The honey smoked crispy chicken was also a generous portion and at only £4.90 was so nice people kept grabbing for the bowls not wanting it to disappear before they had more. I normally don’t like mixing sweet and sour dishes but I have to say this was quickly becoming a firm favourite for me too especially teamed with fried rice.

Most of us drunk Rumba Brava’s all liking the idea of rum mixed with passion fruit (well I think it might have been just me) which were strong but deliciously sweet at the same time and went well with the food. Afterwards I was given a long island ice tea for my birthday which had passed and that too went down a treat.

The only bad thing I have to say about Drunken Monkey was the service was slow, but the food and drinks came pretty quickly once ordered so it kind of made up for it. I’d love to come back and try there dim sum menu too maybe for lunch as we had the main courses mostly and sample more of there menu, but I left thoroughly impressed. Get down there on the weekend in the evening also and you might catch a well known DJ as they have ones from around the world playing. Good food, music, cocktails what else could you want?

Where To Find

222 Shoreditch High Street, London E1    020 739 9606    http://www.thedrunkenmonkey.london/