Beijing Chinese Restaurant, 103 Old Wokingham Road, Crowthorne, RG45 6LH

Open-ended plans often feature high levels of indecision. Luckily, due to a winning combination of well-reasoned logic, recommendation, proximity and hunger we found ourselves making a short walk to Crowthorne's 'Beijing' Chinese Restaurant.

Visiting someone's local favourite is always a good plan - for both good food and insider knowledge (Free takeaway delivery? Of course! However, as Sharon enlightened us, there's never a driver available to do the delivery!)

Whilst packed on Friday nights, we were almost the only diners on a Wednesday evening, but the atmosphere remained relaxed. Service was attentive and the menu was extensive. Whilst the 'Baked spare ribs - capital style' sounded like they were going to be a main meal of deep-fried joy, we opted for the less adventurous but very enjoyable spring rolls and satay chicken. All great, but really, there's just one dish I want to talk about - and disasterously, the picture I have of it just doesn't do it any justice, so I'll let you form a mental picture. Beautifully thin slivers of lamb marinaded in a sticky sauce with ginger, cooked to perfection which slightly crunchy spring onions and peppers. Utter deliciousness.

The staff were very sweet and eager to please - I asked for a take away menu and was given about 50. Upon hearing that one of our party wouldn't be taking a menu as she lived in The Netherlands, we found the waitress enthusing at length about how lovely tulips were. Which was quite endearing.

All in all - a brilliant discovery and the best lamb dish ever.

Kam Tong Restaurant, 59-63 Queensway, Bayswater, London, W2 4QH

Lately, I've really struggled with Sundays. I can start the day early and full of good intentions to make the best of the last day of the weekend. The pressure to do something both fulfilling and exciting inevitably leads to timewasting and nothing of any worth gets done until about 11.30pm where I try and assuage my feelings of guilt with some late night hoovering (quite antisocial in a flat with mostly wooden floors).

My neighbours will have been pleased that last night, some uncharacteristic decisiveness led us to a Cantonese / Szechuan restaurant, which (along with some very good company) was a perfect antidote to the cold-damp-January-Sunday-night blues.

Almost every other restaurant between Queensway and Bayswater tube is a Chinese place. Luckily, Ying had been recommended Kam Tong by a friend (not by name - but by the description that it was 'the one with the big red sign'), so we avoided facing a conundrum of having too much choice.

The very old and naff looking paper menus were quite endearing (but incidentally, the take out menu I grabbed on my way out is exceedingly classy), with pages of dishes to choose from (some delicious sounding, and some a little too adventurous for a Sunday night ('Spicy Intestine Chilli' anyone?)

I was more than happy to let Ying order for me (definite bonus when someone in the know can order for you). Instead, I mostly drank the complimentary green tea (much appreciated in the freezing conditions) and giggled in an immature manner at the 'Morning Glory' vegetable dish (which we ended up ordering).

Slightly bizarrely there was no alcohol on offer tonight (due to a 'problem' of some description) but this didn't bother me. I was enjoying the tea and the way that the staff were determined to spill as much of it as possible whilst topping up our cups. Not to say the service was bad. They smiled at Will's attempts to remember the Chinese that he had allegedly been fluent in the week before.

Ying ordered us some Roast Pork and Roast Duck (it seemed rude not to, given the huge slabs of meat on view in the window). We also ordered spicy chili chicken, salt and pepper tofu for vegetarian Will, the aforementioned morning glory vegetables, and a couple of rice dishes. Out of habit I added some spring rolls to the order, which sadly wasn't a good move-they were the only non-enjoyable dish of the evening)! The Roast Duck and Pork was amazingly juicy and delicious, dripping in flavour.

The salt and pepper tofu was deep fried so it had a crispy coating but was soft inside and had a great kick to it.

The chili chicken was great: covered in chunks of chilli and Schechuan peppercorns.

Once I'd finished giggling, the 'morning glory' veg was nicely green and crunchy.

Overall

Nicely busy for Sunday night, and pretty authentic for Ying to enjoy it (and the majority of the other diners were Chinese). About £15 a head so pretty good value for money, (although this varies - the Roast Duck and Pork was only a fiver and was the best dish). A good place to be cheered and warmed by a tasty and spicy meal with friends on a miserable and damp January Sunday night.

Gourmet San, Bethnal Green Road, London

I love my friends. I love them even more when they introduce me to their favourite hidden-gems of local restaurants. Fia and Jerome first introduced us to Tayyabs, and they'd also a couple of months ago taken us to an amazing Korean place - Myung Ga (okay, it's in Soho so not their local and not really hidden, but we were the only non-Koreans in there, so it felt like a hidden gem). This time it was Laura and Ruari's turn to impress us with their very local Szechuan restaurant, Gourmet San.

As much as I like Chinese food, I'd yet to find somewhere that was exceptional. But I had high hopes knowing that this place would have to be pretty authentic to live up to Laura's standards after her year in China. As I mentioned in the previous post, my love of online restuarant research had found me this review, which amused me and had given me an idea of what to expect, but when I arrived, I really was taken aback by how not only was this a 'shabby on the outside' place, it was not looking good inside either! The restuarant was small and crammed full of people, and as I headed up the steep narrow stairs to the first floor, I couldn't help but notice the worn carpet and generally dilapidated interiors.

But I wasn't worried. I could see the huge dishes of food on the table, appealing to my every sense. As is our custom when someone takes us to their favourite restuarant, we let Laura order for the table, and we weren't disappointed. Instead of the usual Chinese-restuarant fare we were treated to incredibly flavoursome and authentic dishes. We had an aubergine, potato and green pepper dish with lots of garlic (all wonderful things, which worked really well together) , spicy fried chilli chicken, sweet potato noodles, kung po chicken with lots of cashew nuts (as Laura said "made how it was supposed to be" and it certainly tasted so much better than I'd had at other chinese resturants, and the Pièce de résistance; a huge tray of giant pork kebabs - amazingly tasty and really tender from the marinade.


We couldn't believe it had taken us all this long to find this place - as cheap as Tayyabs, but with a much larger menu and huge portions, and food with flavour that would not be matched. They even do home delivery (and I was very jealous that I didn't live in East London at that point). I enjoyed every dish I sampled, and the atmosphere in the upstairs room was laid back enough for us to take our time and not feel at all rushed (unlike Tayyabs where the staff are efficient to get you out and get those queuing seated).

Overall:

Food quality: Amazing. Everything was full of flavour, at the right level of spiciness without being overpowering. The food seemed truly authentic.

Atmosphere: It was packed and manic downstairs, but we were a group of 10 in a small but more light and airy upstairs room, so noise level etc were all about right.

Service: We didn't see staff too often so we were able to have a leisurely meal once we'd ordered, which suited us perfectly.

Value for money: We paid £11 a head for food and drink and the portions are huge. The value for money couldn't be any better.

Toilets: I can't remember them so they must have been fine (which is a really positive thing, considering that the place is really not very visually appealing).

Marks out of 10: 9.5/10 - I really loved this place. The food was the best and most authentic Chinese food i'd ever had.