Yim Wah Express is a traditional, family-run restaurant, serving Cantonese cuisine in the very heart of Cambridge. Many years ago, it used to be located at the Caxton Gibbet, until it was damaged by fire in 2009 and had to be pulled down. It has since relocated to Cambridge, opposite the Catholic church and has been a popular place for people to chow down ever since.

I have always said that we do not review enough Chinese restaurants on the blog but I could no longer ignore the popularity of Yim Wah Express in our Facebook community, with review after review praising it for its quality and value. I decided to take the plunge as part of my journey eating through Regent Street, and though not technically on Regent Street, I would be foolish not to include it on the list as it is only a couple of meters away.

The restaurant

The restaurant isn’t going to win any awards for style. It is bare bones, basic, and not the sort of place you’d want to bring someone for a big party or celebration but there are great views of the Catholic church across the road and large windows for people watching. Its minimalist interior was partly why I left it so long to visit, as it doesn’t really capture the imagination, especially when you look in from the outside.

With that said, the restaurant was well lit, which is a blessing for insufferable people like me who insist on taking photos of their food. It is spacious and large enough to host any number of people too.

The menu felt never ending and was a little overwhelming, especially since Chinese food isn’t my strong suit. I decided to order from their set menu to get an idea of their range and quality.

Set Menu B (£30pp)

• House Special Mixed Platter

(Sesame Prawn on Toast, Capital Spare Ribs, Satay Chicken on Skewers, Spring Rolls, Crispy Seaweed with cashewnuts)

• Crispy Aromatic Duck

(served with Pancakes and Hoi Sin sauce, Cucumber & Spring Onion)

• Sizzling Sliced Fillet Steak Cantonese Style

• King Prawns with Garlic & Chilli

• Sweet & Sour Chicken

• Pak Choi & Chinese Mushroom in Oyster Sauce

• Special Fried Rice

The house special mixed platter

Their mixed platter blew me away. How many times have we all been to a Chinese restaurant and been presented with this exact same dish, only to find cardboardesque prawn toast, chewy satay chicken, and brittle spring rolls, with nothing inside them? Not here! Everything at Yim Wah Express was flawless.

The prawn toast was soft, crispy, and full of flavour. In fact, it might have been the best prawn toast I can remember. The satay chicken slid off the skewer and into my heart with a tender texture and a thick creamy peanut sauce that added real life to the chicken. The ribs fell off the bone with minimal effort with a sweet stickiness that I will be thinking about for days after. The seaweed and cashew nuts were a nice touch and worked well as a crispy garnish for everything else on the plate.

The entire platter left us both excited and frantically trying to think about a time when we have had a better mixed platter than this in Cambridge…and we couldn’t think of one.

Crispy aromatic duck

The duck was executed well, with the usual Hoi Sin sauce, pancakes, onions and cucumber accompanying it. The pancakes were painfully thin and a little sticky, to the point that they would tear while desperately trying to separate them. I found this frustrating but the thinness allowed the flavour from everything else in the middle to stand out more, with the Hoi Sin sauce being particularly rich and vibrant, with a tangy salty and sweet flavour.

Sizzling fried fillet steak (Cantonese style)

The fillet steak came out kicking and screaming on a sizing hotplate, almost as if it was demanding the attention it knew it deserved. This was my favourite dish of the evening. It came with a generous portion of thickly cut onions with fillet steak that was so tender it almost melted in my mouth. I honestly felt like I didn’t even need teeth to eat it.

King Prawns In Garlic Chilli

The king prawns were glorious. These bad boys were thick and juicy with a delicious garlic sauce that had a fiery kick from the chillies that made this the complete package.

Sweet & Sour Chicken

The sweet and sour chicken was a fun and exciting dish, and my guests favourite pick of the evening. She said that it complimented the special fried rice perfectly, and I can see why. The thick sticky sauce absorbed into everything it touched adding a lively tangy sweetness that made it feel a little too easy to chow down. The peppers added colour as well as a crunch, with a slight bitterness that worked alongside the sourness dimension of the sauce to add a mild complexity with the sweetness.

The rice was fried but didn’t have that heaviness to it that you often associate with fried rice. It was packed full of prawns, egg, pork and greens without being an overly loud and busy flavour. The balance was precise and this allowed it to complement any dish it touched without stealing the show, exactly as rice should.

Pak Choi & Chinese Mushroom in Oyster Sauce

I am a little funny with mushrooms and only enjoy them in certain circumstances but these Chinese mushrooms were lovely and meaty, with a delicate flavour that worked in unison with the oyster sauce. The Pak Choi is served in large chunks, making it a challenge to eat with chop sticks but were satisfyingly crunchy and clearly very fresh.

Yim Wah? More like, Yum Wah!

Yim Wah Express doesn’t diverge far from the classic Chinese cuisine that we all know and love, which may fail to excite certain types of foodies looking for dishes from specific parts of China (like the Dumpling Tree) but everything here is prepared, cooked, and presented excellently.

The set menu was a great way to explore the menu and for the restaurant to showcase their quality, without you being surprised by the bill at the end. I cannot stress enough how impressed I was with my meal and I highly recommend everyone who has a passion for Chinese to give them a visit. Yes, the interior isn’t going to win any awards for style but this is something I only hold stock in for special occasions. If you are all about the food then Yim Wah Express is for you.

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