After reading on-line reviews touting Fusion Square as one of the best real Chinese restaurants in…read morethe Helsinki metropolitan area, I had high expectations. On the first occasion to eat out, I took my family to sample some good, Chinese food. Regretfully, we came back truly disappointed.
The menu itself is very tempting, offering a very respectable sample of Chinese cuisine, with an expected overrepresentation of Cantonese fare (no dumplings or steamed buns though!). The problem is with execution. The food has neither flavour nor taste. I ordered "Twice cooked pork", while my wife got a "Lion's head". Both dishes we had before, both in Europe and in Beijing.
The Lion's head, that my wife ordered, looked roughly as it was supposed to (two largish meatballs braised in soy-based sauce), but tasted like baby food, lacking virtually any flavour. The actual dish is supposed to provide some variation in texture by including napa cabbage and shredded water chestnuts (or other firm vegetable). Neither of these were detectable in the dish, with the meat balls being rather mushy. Not the greatest experience overall.
The Twice cooked pork turned out to be rather tasty, if rather diminutive dish (altogether not more than 150 grams of food on the plate). The problem is that, while labeled with three peppers in the menu and originating from Sichuan province cuisine, the dish failed to have even a hint of detectable heat. After an inquiry, we learned that the restaurant does not add spices to the dishes in order to "make them better for non-Chinese people". With reluctance, my dish was taken back and refried with extra dried chillies (I got the same portion back, judging from half-bitten piece of pork). Then it was spicy enough (even a tiny bit over the top) - though in most realisations of this dish the head came from the spice paste, not dried chillies.
The wonton soup we ordered was a bit peppery and had three small, sad wontons floating in it - but we expected this number, so it was not as disappointing.
We had also a bread roll, which was very fatty and uninspiring (though satiating) and potato pancakes, which were a highlight of the meal, as they were actually good.
The staff is apathetic and rather sluggish - but they tried to be polite and helpful, although a bit condescending. Their Finnish leaves (as far as we can tell) a bit to be desired. One person of the waiting staff admitted to speaking English, but all the people we interacted with seemed to understand it.
Overall, objectively speaking this place is not a good value for money, nor is it a place to go to eat tasty, Chinese food. On the other hand, in comparison with the neighbouring options, it is not all that bad. The food was edible, did not give us food poisoning and some of it was even tasty. We will not come back, though.
Whatever you do, stay away from the men's restroom, as it has a vile stench that can put even the most resilient people off eating there.
