Restaurant review: Asia Style, Glasgow

I haven't, however, managed to convince the husband that paper napkins and formica tables, when applied liberally to ethnic restaurants, usually mean that the food is superior to that of a better decorated establishment.

So he was somewhat reluctant about being dragged along to yet another "authentic" Chinese place, this time in Glasgow. Asia Style was recommended as the real deal; cheap, proper Chinese food in an interesting room. Other Half looked depressed at the very mention, so I also took along a Tiggerish friend who is enthusiastic about everything, and a vegetarian, for a laugh.

Walking in we found everything to recommend the cuisine: strip lighting – tick; faded prints of incongruous scenes on the walls – present and correct; odd arrangement regarding toilet facilities – in place. This was looking good.

The menus didn't disappoint; laminated and extensive, there is an English translation of the Mandarin, but little explanation beyond the groupings into soups, starters, meats, rice, Malaysian-style and the ominous-sounding rice porridge, which had a larger section than a restaurant catering only for western tastes could possibly require.

Our vegetarian's feeble little heart sank as the starters and soups section had precisely nothing to offer her. Even the tofu came in a fish soup. The waitress recommended a Malaysian pancake (2.50) with curry sauce followed by a chef's special tofu dish, narrowly avoiding the fate of tofu twice in a row, which no-one deserves. The pancake, when it came, was a thick buckwheat affair, with a sauce that lacked subtlety.

Other Half likes gutsy dishes so plumped first for the salt and chilli prawns at 11.80 for a starter portion. I love soft-shell crab so ordered the salt and pepper version (8) and Mr Enthusiastic then broke the rule of diversification and ordered salt and pepper squid (9).

Still, we got quite a good idea of how good the salt and pepper dishes were and in our defence they did make up 50 per cent of the starter menu. Crunchy on the outside with super savoury spice in the form of chillies, the only criticism of the three is that the prices and portion sizes by no means marked them out as starters and we were left utterly replete, still awaiting the arrival of the main courses.

Other Half's main, Sze Chuan chicken (9.50), was "no better than the usual sugary gloop you get in bog-standard Chinese restaurants" according to him, although he ate it all up. The ginger duck (9.50) contained nice big crunchy pieces of ginger but the duck wasn't tender enough.

And the Ma Po tofu (9.50) only made up for its insipidity by being incredibly over generous in size – enough to feed all four of us by itself, were three of us persuaded to go over to the dark side.

Mr Enthusiasm had characteristically got a little overexcited and insisted that we order thousand years egg with sliced pork porridge (6) and was rewarded for his intrepidness by something slightly better than it sounds. It tasted less like the wallpaper paste that it resembled and more like a wholesome lumpy potato soup with slices of meat on top.

However, after the first few interesting mouthfuls it was mostly left to be taken home for his even more enthusiastic labrador.

Luckily, we'd also ordered the seasonal vegetables and mixed meat noodles (7.80) which proved popular with the three carnivores.

To be fair, we should have taken more direction when ordering and we should have done as is cool in these places; put ourselves in the hands of the waitress and asked what was good that evening.

Plates going past to other tables seemed much more inviting and had we not been so keen to have a random culinary adventure perhaps we would have enjoyed the food more.

Over ordering also meant that it was far from budget; a starter dish per person would have been enough but ordering a starter and main, even if we did come out with a substantial doggy bag, made the place seem expensive.

This article was first published in The Scotsman, 23 July, 2011