Eating Chinese in Glasgow

Tonight's Dinner was a visit to Jimmy Lee's restaurant Lychee Oriental. We had seen Jimmy when he competed on Great British Menu and wanted to taste his food which had looked so good on the programme. I'm glad to say we were not disappointed.

Our table was booked for 7.30 pm and we were one of only four tables booked on this Monday night (often a quiet night for restaurants). The service was impeccable, with a very warm welcome and regular checks on how we were enjoying our food.

We opted for the Banquet Menu which provided a range of food, but also a enabled a selection.

We started with soup. I opted for the Hot 'n' Sour soup, an old favourite of mine. It was rich, meaty and filled with the flavours its name suggests and sprinkled with fresh herbs. I've had this soup in take-aways and in other restaurants, but the freshness of the flavour here marked it out as distinctive.

Drew opted for the Wonton Dumpling soup the wonton's were compact and full with meat. Unlike many places there was no sign of MSG, and the soup was tasty without being overly salty. Drew agreed it was the best Wonton soup he had tasted.

We then shared a platter of mixed starters. These were one each of prawn wontons, a crispy version of the wontons Drew had had in his soup, but lovely with the chilli dipping sauce; capital ribs, which were very meaty ribs in a pork flavoured sauce; chicken satay, which were tender piece of chicken on a skewer with a peanut sauce; honey wings, a sweet chicken wing which were dripping with honey, but balanced well with the spices used in cooking the chicken (Drew had both, while I had both ribs) and pancake rolls, which were cooked in a very distinctive way, ie they were thin rolls, but they had all the flavours of prawn and egg one would expect. The platter was empty when it went back.

Next we shared the two mains which we served with jasmine rice. We opted for roast duck with shitake mushrooms hot pot and stir fried beef with asparagus in chilli garlic.

The duck not only contained mushrooms but lots of other lovely vegetables including water chestnut, carrots, green beans, broccoli, all cooked al dente and all coated with the duck sauce making their flavour enhanced by the combination.

The beef was stir-fried to perfection, not dry, as can so often happen in such dishes. The asparagus gave a freshness to the dish and the red peppers were crisp and tasty. The chilli garlic was a background flavour to enhance the whole experience, rather than an in-your-face sauce, which in some restaurants seem to want to over power the taste of the meat. Not here, the beef and asparagus were clearly the stars of the show. 

Then it was on the dessert course, or the Drew course as it is otherwise known!! Drew asked me to order mango sorbet with lychees while he picked the triple chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream. Drew loved the lychees with mango, the two tastes tingling together to form a lovely whole. There were three large lychees (already peeled) with the sorbet. The chocolate cake, with its sauce was incredibly rich, even smelling it was enough to make me have a sugar rush. Drew however thought it was very nice indeed, though the portion was so generous even he was a bit sugared out by the end.

We finished with a Jasmine tea each and these were served in a mug with a lid on top. Very pretty indeed.

We left the restaurant just before 10 and had a pleasant walk back through the City to our hotel.

Tuesday Breakfast

Haydn's Breakfast

Drew and his breakfast

Tuesday morning dawned and I got up at 6 am to complete the previous days blog. We have a gentle day of travelling today, and a check-in time of 4 pm this afternoon. So we didn't go down to breakfast until 8.40 am. I've highlighted before my praise for the Premier Inn breakfasts, it is one of the things I like most about this chain of hotels. Well today's was as good as ever. As you can see both Drew and I had plenty to keep us going for the day ahead.