The Good Earth, SW3 2EP
- +44 (0) 20 7584 3658
- 223 Brompton Road (map of this place)
- SW3 2EP
A rather nice Chinese restaurant very handy for the Victoria and Albert Museum, offering "traditional and modern Peking, Cantonese and Szechuan cuisine". It has a very good range of vegetarian dishes, including mock chicken and mock prawns.
It can cater for small or large parties, and also offers the option of eating at the bar, which seats maybe ten people. (The bar seats are fixed in place but swivellable; they have backs and are perfectly comfortable with ample space unless you are very large. Easy to get up onto as well, unless you're shorter than about 5 foot.) Do take note that if you're eating at the bar the staff will automatically take your wine bottle away and serve you from it as needed, but if you're drinking a chilled wine this is quite nice since they'll put it in an icebucket for you in between topping up glasses.
It is not the cheapest of places - an order of six meat dumplings (£6.80), mock Szechuan chicken (£7.80), dry-fried aubergine (£6.80), plain rice for two (£2.50), and a £13.50 bottle of wine, came to £37.40, and a 12.5% service charge brought the total to £42.10 for a fairly modest but very high-quality dinner. [Prices as of March 2004.]
OpenGuiders' reviews
Two of us ate here around 10pm on a Friday night and were seated at the bar. Our food came very quickly and obviously straight from the wok. The meat dumplings were hot, fresh, and delicious, with fresh spring onions and coriander adding flavour. The Szechuan chicken was slightly sweet (perfect for [doop]?, a little too sweet for Kake) and of a good texture. The dry-fried aubergines were spicy, hot and freshly cooked.
Service was good; a waiter was at our side as soon as we indicated readiness to order. The staff took charge of our wine but there was minimal delay before empty glasses were filled. When they poured the last of our bottle they asked if we wanted more but there was no pushiness.
We enjoyed our dinner here very much and will come again.
(Kake, March 2004)