I really want the Oriental to be a favourite, and while it seems to have everything to make it a favourite there is something just not quite right. For sure it is worth regular visits and perhaps if I went there a little more often I might be able to pin down what is unsettling – second floor of a wannabe 5-star? Furniture?

We arrived about 8.30 and the place was empty. People do eat early in China, but still it is a little perturbing walking into a restaurant to find that you’re the only ones there. The place looks great. Dark matt-stained wood flooring, big high-backed armchairs at real wood tables, no direct lighting, soft earthy colours all round. The table was too big to sit opposite each other, so we moved one of the settings around the corner to sit closer. And anyway, sitting opposite is for business.

At Oriental, the menu is gigantic, spread over 10 or 12 pages, and food is from all over South and South-East Asia, and maybe this is where the problem starts – what the hell to order? Food is categorised by country, and each country seems to be split up. There are hot appetisers, cold starters for each country, main courses, curries – Indian and Thai and Malaysian, Chef’s recommendations on another page. All very confusing for my little brain. After a meeting with the waitress, who did know her stuff, we learned there is a guest Thai chef in the house, so we decided to stick Thai – maybe next go with Philippine or Malay…

With all that decision making dealt with, time to sit back in those huge chairs and wait for the grub to come. Having started this page on a slightly negative note, now it is time to be positive. The food is very good, and the timing of the dishes arriving at the tables is good too. The Chicken Pandan is definitely the best in Hangzhou, juicy and crispy at the same time, with delicate seasoning, the yellow prawn curry with pineapple was lemongrass and ginger(?) spicy, the sauce delicious over Thai rice, pork wrapped in lettuce, always a favourite, was diced a little more coarsely giving the dish more texture. The only disappointed was the garlic fried beef – the meat was not a good cut and had been tenderised with that god-forsaken chemical, something I haven’t seen done for a long time.

The wine list looked like it had been sourced from Metro, which was a pity, but the prices were reasonable, for China. The coffee was crap.

Despite that ‘thing’ will certainly go back, the food is just too good.

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