A taste of the East

If you live just south of Hammersmith Bridge and your best bloke says to you "Well, princess, what about a Chinese?" there hasn't, until now, been much choice about where to go. If it was an Italian you were after that would be a different story. It shows sound business sense on the part of Rebecca Mascaren has to close what was her pizza-and-pasta Bibo and go into partnership with a chef and manager previously working at Memories of China, and open, without a huge amount of decorative transformation,

Business is already brisk on the takeaway side (menu prices minus 10 per cent) as well as the restaurant operation. In fact, the evening we ate at Chinoise, there was an air of just-controlled panic as if the kitchen was seriously short-staffed.

The chap in charge, a Chinese man called David who said he came from Wales, remained good-humoured and encouraging as diners stared at the empty place-settings in front of them. In a Chinese restaurant you can't even hand around bread for a second time or, indeed, a first one.

Never mind, when the food arrived it was good. Special mention must go to mustard-leaf-and-salted-egg pork soup, listed under the specials, wonderfully fresh, crisp, yielding salt-and-pepper tofu and equally skilfully fried three-spice, deep-fried squid. Red oil poached dumplings were fine, as were steamed scallops with garlic and spring onion, a union made in heaven.

Apart from a not-very-adept broccoli in crabmeat and egg white, our main-course choices were from the more interesting list of specials. Best of what we selected was a soothing dish of Fook Chow seafood fried rice served for two. Mushi (sic) pork, served with pancakes, was slight on the meat, heavy on reconstituted mushrooms, but wrapping it in a pancake helps along any assembly.

The only real disappointment was a dish of braised duck with monk's vegetables. The meat was like rags and those monks must just be doing penance in their take on vegetables.

Reasons for a second visit are eel in hot black-bean sauce, crispy suckling pork, lamb with bamboo skins and samba fish baked in banana leaf. That is not the stuff of the average local Chinese restaurant and nor is the wine list the usual dull collection. In fact, it is very good. Bye-bye Bibo. Hello and welcome Chinoise.

Chinoise
190 Castlenau, SW13 9DH