China Blue

I popped in here for a meal tonight as I was in the neighbourhood and I wanted somewhere new to Unilocal
The restaurant sells itself as a Chinese and Thai restaurant though an examination of the menu confirms that the overwhelming majority of the dishes are Chinese in origin.
I’m not sure how busy the restaurant is but the waiter seemed genuinely shocked when I walked in and he still looked surprised when I asked if I could have a table for one. I suspect a lot of their trade may perhaps be takeaway though that’s a shame as the décor is quite well done inside.
My heart rose when the menu arrived — it looked quite funky with a raised design on the front. My heart sank again when I opened it and the menu looked rather amateurly produced. With today’s powerful publishing tools available to the home user, there’s no excuse for not knocking up a classy design yourself if you can’t afford professional services.
Another alarm bell rang when I ordered. I used the names of the dishes which I wanted and the waiter looked through my menu and used the dish numbers instead. Even more connotations of takeaway.
Anyway, my food did arrived promptly and all the dishes arrived together as requested rather than as a starter and main course.
The weakest dish was the won ton soup. At £2.60, I wasn’t expecting giant won tons but the Lilliputian dumplings in the terribly weak anaemic soup look like they had been shrunk by the shrinking ray in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!
My main dish of mixed meat on crispy noodles was nice without being outstanding.
The batter coating on the lemon duck was too mushy and lacked crispness though the sauce did at least avoid the usual sin of being too gloopy.
Overall, the whole experience felt like what I experienced on ordering — an experience by numbers