Ting Restaurant, which means ‘living room’ in Chinese, is the main restaurant at the Shangri-La Hotel London, and is located on level 35 of the Shard. The ground floor entrance has a Chinese art painting, which reminded me of Lost Horizon. I booked a table for dinner for my 40th birthday weekend. Luca and I were genuinely excited about the meal.
The most outstanding aspect of the restaurant was the 360-degree view across the River Thames, which took in Tower Bridge, Maritime Greenwich and Canary Wharf.
Our table was directly above London Bridge Mainline Station. At sunset, it was raining outside, and the raindrops and thin mist over the views made it even more mysterious. It took our breath away, as we had a surreal experience enjoying dinner while seeing the whole city. The views were incredible.
Ting has Asian influences to its décor, taken from the characteristics of Shangri-La, but the restaurant offers a modern European menu. We started with glasses of champagne for a toast. Three different types of bread and seaweed butter had a mouth-watering aroma.
My starter was Dorset Crab garnished with cucumber and Granny Smith apple. I loved this refreshing and flavourful crab, which was the right combination with champagne.
I was so glad to see the twilight views illuminating the buildings, and Luca asked me: “what are your goals for the next ten years?” I couldn’t find any prompt answers to the question, because I felt happy that I have good health and am surrounded by good friends and mentors.
Luca had a sirloin steak, and I had Salt Marsh lamb with potato for our main course. They were beautifully presented. I realised that I tend to have a lamb steak on special occasions. I also had a glass of white wine, and we immersed ourselves in conversation.
We had chosen the same dessert, titled ‘Passion and Banana’, which was delicious! We were also served chocolate cream-filled sandwich biscuits and fruit jellies, with a little additional chocolate slab that had the words ‘happy birthday’ on it.
The three-course dinner was a fantastic experience. The special treat for my 40th birthday was not done yet. We had one more special meal the following day.
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