This week my colleagues and I went out for lunch to get out of the office for an hour and have some time to chat about our weekend and social lives outside of the work environment…it’s good to escape and have a change of scenery!
With St Katherine’s Docks so close to the office we picked Ping Pong for our lunch outing. One of my colleagues had been there a few times at other branches and recommends it, and it was something a little different and still nice and healthy.
The day was pretty gloomy, windy and not the nicest I must say, so I was pleased when we arrived and it was nice and warm. The inside of the restaurant looks really smart, it’s black themed and is modern and very clean! Everything looks so new! The location is lovely and on a nice day in the summer I can imagine this would be the perfect place for lunch sat outside looking out on the docks.
We were greeted by a lovely male waiter who let us pick our table before they brought over the menus. We settled in and took a look – as usual I had had a brief look online to see what I might like.
Ping Pong have a fab lunch menu for £9, which includes 6 steamed dim sum, a rice dish and cup of one of their teas – rare and gourmet, herbal infusions or flowering all included. They have a winter warmer for meat eaters and a vegetarian one too.
When the female waitress came over to say hi, she asked if we’d been before and if we knew how the menu worked. As we’d all managed to make a quick decision our waitress took our order and we eagerly awaited..my tummy rumbling and we were ready for the re-boost after a very busy morning.
All three of us went for the winter warmer which came with a chicken and broccoli rice pot, I went for a black tea with milk (the most like normal tea…yes I’m fussy over teas, nothing beats a English cuppa!), one of my colleagues went for the mint tea and the other a flowering tea. We also ordered some edamame beans and some mushrooms to come out on the side.
The teas were delivered first, my tea looking pretty normal but the tea bag hung from a cocktail skewer on the top of the glass, the mint tea looked pretty standard too, but the flowering tea was amazing. The bud was delivered in the glass, and as they poured the water over the bud started to expand until it had flowered in the tea. I was also told that it tasted really nice too!
Our food started coming out, first the edamame and mushrooms followed by our rice dishes and finally the dim sum which were steaming hot!
Edamame beans warm with salt
The mushrooms, chilli sauce and chilli oil
The edamame came with a salt on them, served warm and were fantastic. I don’t think I’ve ever had warm edamame beans before and I really enjoyed these. The mushrooms came cold, and although were tasty I wasn’t too sure…I think my brain just thinks mushrooms should be hot. (I don’t understand how people eat them raw either!) But they tasted really nice mixed with my rice pot!
The rice pots were a perfect size, reasonably big and were delicious. There was just enough sauce to cover the rice, and although it’s not got a huge amount of chicken, with everything else as well I’m not sure it needs it. I did mix some chilli sauce in with some of my rice and a tad chilli oil with chillis – I do like my spice!
Finally the dim sum – the first time I had these I still remember. I really was not sure what I thought, to me they felt like they had the texture of eyeballs and with this in mind I was a tad weary. However these dim sum were amazing! They were all extremely tasty. I did use my chopsticks but accompanied by the spoon from the rice pot, they were just a little too slippery for my chopstick skills. I dipped a few in soy sauce which was available on the table too, and added a nice touch. The spicy chicken dumplings did have a slight spice to them, but I think the prawn ones were my favourite!
The green ones are the prawn ones!
Halfway through I asked for some tap water and some milk for my tea (it didn’t come with it at first…I think sometimes I speak too quietly) and the waiter let me know he would bring it over. The water turned up reasonably quickly, although I did have to re-ask for the milk which appeared to be forgotten about but I could tell he had been busy.
The waitress cleared our table and popped back to see if we’d like anything else. The thought of desserts at this point was not even entering my mind, I was so full!
We got the bill and the waitress popped back with the card reader not long after. I was super lucky as my account manager decided she was treating us! How nice was that? We then headed back to the office to return to our very busy schedule.
Overall, lunch was fab! Great service, delicious food and a fantastic price! We weren’t much longer than our lunch hour too, which makes it great for popping to on a lunch break if you work close by! I would highly recommend Ping Pong if your looking for a place to eat out on a lunch break, and the rest of their menu looks amazing too! I’ll definitely be returning for dinner one evening!
Chloe xx