Cafe Opium

Cafe Opium
67-69 George Street
Oxford

Having reviewed Cafe Opium here for yum cha, and here for noodle soup, this will be a brief roundup of a late, quick and delicious dinner.



Sizzling beef with black pepper. Savoury, tender, not at all authentic Chinese, but very good anyway.



Black pepper pork with rice. Cheap and filling. Nothing wrong except lacking in some authenticity. Basic stir fry with gravy over rice.



Mushroom duck with rice.



Kung Po chicken, I think.



Not sure how this was, but the neon sauce doesn't bode well.



My shui zhu rou (literally boiled beef) was delicious. Served poached in a chili broth with veges on the bottom of the bowl, it lacked the litres of fiery chili oil used in China (I kid you not, it is meant to be drowned in oil), but had a very good flavour.



The perfect accompaniment to plain rice.



Satay beef with rice (?).



Roast duck on rice. I've only had duck at Cafe Opium once, and it was very salty and not terribly crisp. In their defence it was about 11.30pm and I wasn't the most sober I'd ever been. This particular version looked very nice.



The damage: £7 for a main dish with rice. Not bad, not great, but most of the mains were delicious and were quickly gobbled up.