Reviewed
many
years
ago

When that craving for Chinese food comes over you, you may be faced with the problem that there are few eateries in the gap between takeaways and top-class (and consequently very expensive) restaurants. This makes for a difficult choice between monosodium glutamate overload or the monthly credit card bill nightmare. We discovered that The Peninsula restaurant in George Street bridges this gap nicely with a delicious meal for two with wine coming to just over £30.00.
After perusing the menu outside we descended the entrance staircase and came to the bar, where we were greeted by a waiter and shown to a table. The surroundings were smart but lacking a little in character, although this could be attributed to the fact that this was rather early on a Sunday evening. The large spacious dining rooms suggest that it is usually busy.

Now down to business and back to the menu. It offered quite a wide selection of dishes and very reasonably priced set meals, although vegetarian options seemed rather limited. Resisting the tempting Peking duck, we opted for crispy aromatic lamb as a starter. This was ' served with fresh iceberg lettuce and a delicious sauce for you to roll your own, so to speak. The menu claimed that this served two, but that does not do justice to the healthy sized portions, and we began to doubt the wisdom of ordering three main dishes for the two of us.

After a suitable break our main course arrived. We had chosen another lamb dish, this time with spring onions, roast duck with beansprouts, and sizzling beef in black bean sauce accompanied with egg fried rice. The duck was tasty with a subtle flavour which was an ideal contrast to the rich beef dish, while the lamb lived up to the very high standard set by the first course. The house white wine we ordered proved to be good value and a sound companion to the flavourful food. The end result of all this is that we cannot comment upon the desserts or coffee served at The Peninsula as we were far too full for either.

We would thoroughly recommend The Peninsula for scrumptious Chinese food at reasonable prices, although for a lively atmosphere avoid Sunday evening!

Lisa Craig