Chinatown London

Chinatown, London. A place full of the smell of the orient. In 2007 it is mainly an area of restaurants and supermarkets with one or two gift shops. Gone are the small shops that sold Chinese shoes and dresses.

Best time to visit if you want to avoid massive crowds is during the working week. Chinese New Year (in UK the main day of celebration is the Sunday : not necessarily the actual festival day) would be overwhelmingly crowded but the decorations are in place a few days before and afterwards. Mid-Autumn Festival also has decorations. Far less national publicity is paid to this festival.

Shops are open quite late into the evening and 7 days a week.

Restaurants vary in price from cheap to very expensive. There are also a couple of Taiwanese restaurants as well as Japanese tucked among the many mainland Chinese.

Chinatown in London for me was an amazing experience it was one of those places I had never been to but heard so much about it that you felt you must go and see for yourself.

As you enter the area of china town you are faced with a huge gateway painted in red and gold and glittering with brightly coloured lights, the next guarrenteed experience is an overwhelming mixture of wonderful smells of chinese food so much that you instantly feel hungry, and this is the best part about chinatown you are then faced with which one of the dozens of restaurants to choose from.

There are also two large supermarkets in chinatown with every possible authentic chinese ingredient and product you could think of and more.

There is far too much for me list here, so I must urge you to go and see for yourself......