Last Updated on June 15, 2025
Chinese restaurant, Sanxia Renjia celebrates its 15th anniversary
3.5 out of 5.0 starsCelebrating its 15th year on London’s Goodge Street, Sanxia Renjia has been delighting loyal customers for years while jostling for attention amongst a plethora of eateries. Known for its authentic Sichuan and Cantonese cuisine, the restaurant has plenty of lip-burning, hot dishes from Sanxia, a scenic area along the Yangtze River.
Sichuan cuisine is well represented on the menu along with popular regional dishes from mainland China, especially Chongqing and Hubei. The distinguishing feature of Sichuan cuisine is Ma La (numbing spiciness), and it also reveals flowery flavours of Sichuan peppercorns, along with a combination of salty, sweet, bitter, and smoky. This complexity results in dishes with depth of flavour.
Inside Sanxia Renjia, we found a long room, simply adorned with Chinese lanterns. It was an informal venue with about 40 covers.
We began with a lotus root and spare rib soup, which was served in a large bowl. The grey-hued broth had a more pleasing flavour than its appearance, and I liked the crunchy texture of the lotus root. The small pieces of spare rib were chewy and mildly spiced.
Next, we ordered the Sanxia cold appetiser platter; five dishes served at room temperature. My favourite of the five items was the black mushroom salad served with lots of chilli. I enjoyed the silky texture and the opportunity to eat a mushroom that was new to me. Other items included thin slices of five-spiced beef served on cucumber in a soy sauce, a cold noodle salad, slices of pork belly in a garlicky sauce, and wafer-thin slices of chicken in another garlicky sauce. The latter, I later realised, was called kou shui ji, mouth-watering chicken, and is one of the most popular dishes of Sichuan cuisine
We picked three main dishes as advised by the waiter. I opted for seabass with wild chilli sauce, which was the highlight of the meal. A large, whole seabass was beautifully cooked and had just the spicy profile I was hoping to experience. It looked resplendent too, with a coating of spring onion and chopped chillies. We couldn’t possibly eat it all along with the other dishes – portions were generous – and the waiter packed up the leftovers for us to take home.
The most interesting dish was one I had not tasted before. Salted egg yolk stuffed lotus root arrived in the form of six deep-fried fritters. These were well fried, crispy on the outside and creamy within. The filling was very tasty, slightly salty, with good textural contrast provided by the slices of lotus root.
The third dish was fried aubergine, potatoes and green peppers. I was interested to see how Sanxia Renjia would present this vegetable mèlange. I had arrived back from a trip around Sicily a few days before, where I had eaten this combination of vegetables on numerous occasions. What would it taste like with a different cuisine? An appetising dish of red and green peppers, potato slices, chunks of aubergine and slices of garlic was cooked in a sweet-sour sauce. The aubergine was soft and yielding, while the peppers were crunchy, and the potatoes were just cooked and holding their shape. It had a pleasing spice level and was very tasty.
Alongside the mains, we ordered prawn chow mein. Fried vermicelli noodles were served with a generous helping of prawns, spring onions, and crunchy bean sprouts. It was a gentle accompaniment to the spicy fish, which had us breaking into a gentle sweat.
Sanxia Renjia is conveniently located in the heart of Fitzrovia and would be a good place to stop off for a quick lunch or if you are on your way in the evening to the cinema or a show in the West End. It is an informal, no-frills restaurant. Come here for the food, which is very tasty and served in generous portions.
Sanxia Renjia,
29 Goodge Street,
London W1T 2PP
Tel: 07883 266403
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