My walk through Chinatown London in 2016 started with people putting up red lanterns and ended at home, carefully opening a box of cream cakes. Between those two moments came pork buns at Baozi Inn, a Happy Lemon drink I could barely describe, and warm custard-filled taiyaki from Chinatown Bakery. It was a Chinese New Year outing built around looking, wandering and finding the next thing to eat.

From the Roberts London archive: the original film was published on 7 February 2016, ahead of the Year of the Monkey. This is an account of that visit, with original stills from the supplied archive video. Shops, menus, prices and redevelopment observations describe 2016.

Watching Chinatown prepare for Chinese New Year

The lanterns were the first thing to draw me in. Strings of red stretched across the street, and more were still being assembled. It is easy to admire the finished display without thinking much about how it gets there. This time I could see the work: lanterns laid out on the pavement, boxes around them and people trying to organise everything in the wind.

I remember thinking that the decorations looked wonderful once they were up, but I did not envy the people putting them there. Filming a piece to camera was awkward enough in that weather. Handling long strings of lanterns looked considerably harder.

There was plenty happening at street level too. I stopped to watch a Hare Krishna group dancing, enjoying the movement and the mixture of robes and trainers. These moments were part of the walk rather than a formal itinerary. The film moves between preparations, passing performers, decorated streets and whatever catches my attention next.

From daylight into an illuminated evening

Chinatown looked good during the day, but I thought it looked even better lit up at night. As the light changed, the lanterns and illuminated shopfronts became the strongest features of the streets. Looking upwards was as rewarding as looking into the food windows.

This was the lead-up to Chinese New Year, rather than a film of the main parade. In my introduction I talked about the coming celebrations; the original description identified 8 February as New Year’s Day and 14 February as the date of London’s main festivities that year. My own outing was a chance to see the neighbourhood getting ready and enjoy the food along the way.

I also noticed change beneath the decorations. A stretch where I remembered street-food stalls was under redevelopment. There was still plenty to choose from, but it was a reminder that the Chinatown in this film was a particular moment in the area’s life.

Pork buns from Baozi Inn

By then I was ready to eat. Passing Jen Café brought back memories of watching dumplings being made in its window on an earlier visit. This time, though, I had decided on pork buns at nearby Baozi Inn.

I pointed out the restaurant and the kitchen and takeaway next door. There was the option of queuing for a seat inside, but I wanted something I could take out and eat while continuing the walk. My order was two smaller pork buns and a larger pork bun.

Eating them outside while filming was not especially elegant. The wind was still blowing, and holding the camera and the food at the same time made me wish for an extra pair of hands. The food made the juggling worthwhile. The pork was delicious, and the bun had a little sweetness while remaining mainly savoury.

I tried the larger bun too, then came back to the smaller ones as my favourites. The greens in their filling gave them a contrast in texture that I particularly liked. It was a simple takeaway stop, but exactly the sort of thing I had come to Chinatown for.

The shorter film and its closer account are collected in my Baozi Inn pork buns article. That clip came from this longer outing; here, the buns are one stop in the whole evening.

Cream cakes worth coming back for

The bakery windows made it difficult to move very far without stopping again. At Kowloon Bakery I spotted the character cream cakes that Chloe loved, especially the Hello Kitty-style ones. They looked like small edible figures, with faces and shapes built from piped cream.

I knew from experience that buying one early in a walk was a bad idea. The decoration was soft cream, not a solid topper. A knock or a tilt of the box could destroy the face, leaving something that no longer resembled the character I had chosen.

So I made a plan to return just before heading home. There were other things to try first, and the less time those cakes spent being carried around London, the better their chances.

Happy Lemon and a drink I had never tried

Next I fancied bubble tea. I talked about the familiar milky drink and tapioca pearls while walking past the tea shops, but what eventually caught my attention was something less familiar. A nearby menu offered a combination involving tiramisu, cheese and salt. It sounded so unusual that I wanted to find out what it tasted like.

That is often how I choose from a menu: if there is something I have never tried, curiosity tends to win. The queue encouraged me too. I found myself at Happy Lemon, considering milk tea with Oreo and tiramisu salted cheese.

The staff helped me through the ordering process, which was useful because I was plainly working this one out as I went. Once I had the drink, describing it to the camera proved harder than buying it.

At first it was very milky, with a suggestion of Oreo, a little salt and a flavour I could not quite put into words. I kept trying to identify the tea and the other elements. It was not unpleasant; it simply did not match the picture the menu wording had created in my head.

Then I gave it a proper stir. That was the turning point. Mixing the topping through the drink brought the flavours together, and the description finally arrived: something like a cheesecake milkshake with tea. I went from struggling to explain it to really enjoying it. The odd-sounding order had been worth trying.

Watching the taiyaki machines

After the drink, I wanted taiyaki: the little fish-shaped cakes I had seen being made in bakery windows. Watching the equipment was an attraction in itself. The moulds opened to reveal rows of fish shapes, with the work continuing around the machine as people gathered to look.

I had noticed another bakery preparing to open opposite the W hotel. It was so new that it did not yet have a sign, but the machine was running and tasters were being handed out. I filmed what was happening without trying the samples, then headed back to Chinatown Bakery for my own cakes.

The process looked mechanical, but it was not simply a matter of pressing a button and walking away. I watched the operator attending to the machine and making adjustments. There was still someone overseeing the production as the cakes came out.

Warm custard cakes on the pavement

My taiyaki came fresh from Chinatown Bakery’s machine. Small enough to hold up to the camera, they had the fish shape that made the window display so entertaining. Inside was warm custard.

They were delicious. After the savoury buns and the unexpected tea, a hot little cake made a good next stop. The street remained the setting for the tasting, with the bakery and the passing crowd around me.

I have also kept the focused taiyaki visit at Chinatown Bakery as its own archive article. The full film shows how it fitted into this longer sequence of lanterns, shops and food.

Getting Hello Kitty and the panda home intact

Before leaving, I returned for the cream cakes. I chose a Hello Kitty-style cake and a panda for Chloe. Taking two felt like a practical decision: perhaps they would stand together more securely in the box, and if one suffered on the journey, there would still be another.

The plan was soon tested by a dash for the train. After all that care over when to buy them, I had to run with the box. By the time I filmed the final part at home, there was a proper question to answer: had they survived?

For once, they had. I opened the box carefully and then tore part of it away rather than risk damaging the cakes at the final stage. The panda still looked like a panda, and the Hello Kitty-style cake had held together remarkably well. I showed both to the camera, pleased with a result that had often eluded me before.

It was a suitably small, domestic ending to a busy Chinatown film. The evening had started with decorations being prepared across whole streets. It finished with me trying not to squash a cream cake. In between, there had been enough food, colour and curiosity to make a memorable London walk.

Watch the full Chinatown London 2016 film

The full film follows the visit from the daytime preparations to the final cake reveal at home. For another nearby stop from the same period, see my pancake breakfast at Jackson & Rye in Soho.