Sweet Mandarin

I went to a very glass-fronted place in the northern quarter (opposite the previously reviewed TNQ) called Sweet Mandarin. It looked nice enough - quite modern with nice wall-size photos of rice in fields and origami cranes instead of the washed-out paintings of pagodas and those funny gold cats with the waving arm.

The service was pretty slow. They were quite busy but not exactly heaving so not really an excuse. The food certainly passable. I started with a wanton soup which was fine - quite heavy on the sesame oil - but tasty and really not bad at all. The main course was sweet and sour king prawns. The menu enticed me with fancy names thinking that this might be a little different from your average S&SP but really it wasn't anything special. Ultimately I felt a little fobbed off by the flowery descriptions.

This didn't come cheap - but to add insult, at the end they managed to get my bill wrong to the tune of a tenner. I was not best pleased and in my ire refused to pay the service charge once they had worked it out properly.

Update: A return visit recently revealed little new of note. I went with a couple of friends and while the food was certainly passable it wasn't in the same league as the star attractions of Chinatown.