On Brad’s actual 30th birthday, we went to Little Lamb in Chinatown. Both of us love steamboat restaurants and have fond memories of a whole street full of them in Beijing. Little Lamb is actually Mongolian but the premise is pretty much the same — Ingredients you cook yourself in a steaming broth.  

Brad and I plumped for the three flavour pot which comes with the spicy, tonic and a plainer mushroom broth. The spicy broth is the best of the lot but it’s good to have something a little softer to counter it, every now and then. For £20 a head, you get the broth and a choice of five ingredients per person. It is an astonishing amount of food, I think next time we might just choose individual items. 

We ordered two sauces to go with our meal - Little Lamb’s special sauce and a sesame flavoured one. The special sauce is by far the best, it’s like an intense satay. 

There are lots of options to choose from on the menu and we opted for the following: Classic Lamb Slice, Special Beef Slice, Tofu Knots, Pak Choi, Soft Shell Crab, Oyster Mushrooms, Potatoes, Fish Balls, Fuzhuo Fish Balls and Mongolian Flat Bean Noodles. 

The Fuzhuo fish balls were my favourite, each being stuffed with minced pork, closely followed by the meat slices and normal fish balls. The Mongolian Flat Bean Noodles were also good, although they do take some time to cook and we weren’t sure how long they needed before they were the right consistency. Oyster mushrooms and pak choi added some much needed vegetables to the equation. 

The potatoes took forever to cook and the end result was a little disappointing. Soft shell crab tastes better when it’s fried, I was too scared to crunch into like I would at a Vietnamese restaurant! The tofu knots were just a bit too bland for both of us. 

Brad and I went on our own to Little Lamb but I think it would be a great restaurant for four people, which would give you the opportunity to try quite a chunk of the menu out. Next time we go, we’ll interchange what didn’t work for some other items on the menu, with 10 choices it doesn’t seem to matter so much if one or two aren’t a success. With drinks and service, it works out to be around £25-£30 per head. Not too shabby given the amount of food you get. 

Little Lamb
72 Shaftesbury Avenue
London W1D 6NA
Phone:  +44(0)2072878078