Tai Tung

Quick review:
+ good selection of dim sum
+ staff was friendly enough
+ very popular with Chinese patrons
— food is on the salty, fatty side
I came here with my other half on Sunday lunch time to celebrate Chinese New Year. It looked like half of the Croydon population also had the same idea and we had to wait over an hour for our ticket to be called. I have passed by this restaurant quite a few times going to Wing Yip supermarket next door and it’s not usually this busy, though, so rest assured most of the time it’s not as hectic.
Maybe because of the special occasion, the restaurant was expecting a high number of patrons so we felt that the food was fresh, with lots of waiting staff whizzing by on hand to help out. Once we were seated, the tea quickly came, and then once they took our order of dim sums, the food followed in less than 10 minutes.
We had a plate of char siu (BBQ pork) which was succulent and had the perfect flavour, although slightly fatty. We also had tripe, which again the flavour was spot on, although the colour was slightly greyer than I would have expected. Har Gow was small but tasty, and we had a few other dishes that tasted the part. Altogether, we had 7 plates of dim sum, plus the plate of BBQ pork, and a tea for two, totalling £32. Not bad.
Overall, the taste was good but maybe quality could be better. The chefs might be a bit over-​generous with MSG but so are many Chinese restaurants, I suspect. The staff was friendly enough; it’s never going to be Michelin service but I thought the staff was helpful and friendly for a Chinese restaurant.
Considering a lack of good Cantonese food in Surrey where I live, and this is probably one of the closest options without travelling into central London, I would definitely return when I am craving a few dim sum bits.

It’s the main restaurant in the Wing Yip complex in Croydon and you’d expect better food. My mother and I took a trip to Ikea and we had to stop off at Wing Yip for business matters and we decided to have a mini dim sum lunch at Tai Tung. It wasn’t great, and to top it off, service was crap.
We ordered Char siu Pastries and the pastry had been kneaded too long because the layers had all stuck together inside and there was just too much pastry to char siu ratio. (I’ve been watching Great British Bake-​off and I’m totally a pseudo pastry identifier!) Har Gau, prawn dumplings were standard, no real complaints. The large pork soup dumpling (not shanghai ver.) was also sub-​par, broth was far too salty. The worst of the lot of Thai style Chicken claws, my mother claims it wasn’t washed properly because it still had a dodgy taste and they had put far too much sugar into the marinade so it was just sugary chicken claws. ew. We let the waitress know and asked if whether the chef had changed and she turned all cagey and retorted that the chef is the same, the taste is the same! Not even an apology.
Also don’t know whether my mother and I have the sensitive asian gene but we both felt that the msg content had been too damn high because we felt quite sick and bloated as we walked through the supermarket.
I’ll give them an extra star for the roast pork and roast duck takeaway we ordered, because they were quite nice for my dinner.

First sign of a good Chinese restaurant? All the Chinese people in there. Second sign? All the Chinese people queuing up outside waiting to get in.
Tai Tung, often referred to as Wing Yip due its location within a Wing Yip business centre, is a big, busy, Chinese restaurant, serving dim sum during the day, and normal Chinese restaurant fare in the evening. Come for the dim sum, if only because it can get quite lonely if you visit for dinner during the week.
The dim sum here is reliably good, if not spectacular and the service efficient enough. Make sure you arrive before noon or after 2pm on a Sunday, or be prepared for a wait. Saturdays are less busy, but queues are still known to form at about 1pm.
Parking is free and plentiful, and Tai Tung is located at the less busy (southern) end of Purley Way.