Traditional Chinese dishes delivered from YY Oriental Supermarket
YY Oriental Supermarket near The Back of Beyond is just one of many Asian supermarkets in town now, but the first to open up a restaurant attached this year! I've seen this in some supermarket/restaurant combos in London, like Loon Fung Alperton and Hoo Hing Park Royal, and it makes sense since the restaurant can make use of the supermarket's supply chain and fresh produce.
I've been meaning to visit in person for a while now, but things kept coming up, so tonight I decided to order some takeaway from them for delivery since my parents were round and we could try a larger variety of dishes.
Their online menu is surprisingly accessible even to English speakers, and lists a selection of Chinese dishes from Hong Kong to mainland favourites. I pre-ordered in the afternoon for it to be delivered in the evening, and could pay online (cash upon receipt also available). It came a bit later than I had expected, but was still piping hot when it arrived.
From left to right, we first had Fried squid pepper & salt, otherwise known as Salt & pepper squid. Unfortunately this was the worst start to the meal as it lacked the eponymous salt in the name(!), and was largely flabby and flavourless, highly disappointing. Even allowing for the fact that fried foods don't travel well in terms of texture, it doesn't excuse them for the lack of taste.
Thankfully after that the rest of the dishes were brilliant. The Hot & spicy marinated beef slices & beef tripe, commonly known as husband and wife beef slices, was well flavoured and savoury. Interestingly, they chose to pair up the beef slices with two kinds of beef tripe: the standard reticulum honeycomb tripe, but also the finer omasum book tripe which is normally served with sesame dressings. It provided an even greater variety of textures which I appreciated. They didn't bulk it up with some sliced cucumber at the bottom as most restaurants would, but served a reasonable quantity for the price.
The pork belly with salted fish was a dish that I had never heard of before, with salted fish being a very Hong Kong ingredient that mainlanders rarely eat. What came was a delicious dish of stir fried slices of pork belly, similar to twice cooked pork, but with a pungent funk of salted fish that may be an acquired taste but I enjoyed it.
Next was the eggplant with minced pork, otherwise known as fish fragrant aubergine. This is one of my favourite dishes ever and is probably the dish I'd choose to have at my last meal, so I was very curious on their take as it allows for a lot of regional variation. Their version used the paler, thinner, longer Asian aubergine as would be served traditionally, but didn't batter the pieces so was lighter than expected. The flavour was less intense, just a faint mix of sweet, sour, spicy, and salty, but overall was a good dish. My favourite fish fragrant aubergine in Reading still comes from King's Chef, but I still prefer this over the one from Good Old Days that leaned too heavily into the HK salted fish in my opinion.
Lastly was the pea shoots with garlic. This is a Chinese green that I see so rarely now, they don't even sell it at See Woo! It was fresh, crunchy, garlicky, the perfect side to a meal, and the reason why I'm so grateful that they have a supermarket attached to them as I'm sure they otherwise wouldn't get enough turnover of this dish to otherwise keep it on the menu. It was so good that after we finished the veg I drank the rest of the umami stock!
So despite the disappointing start, overall I thought YY was brilliant, 4 hits out of 5 is a very respectable rate. Maybe they cook traditional Chinese food better than Westernised Chinese food better, I'll have to visit them in person sometime to try out more from their menu. I'm glad Reading has added another great option to the town centre, we're really receiving the dividends from the BNO visas, and I hope they do well! At £59 for 5 dishes in April 2025 it's more expensive than a normal Chinese takeaway, but they offer traditional dishes, and a free delivery fee via their English website, so well worth a try! Happy eating! :9
Posted Apr 8, 2025, 9:17 PM UTC