Jade Palace, Earby

9:11am Friday 8th February 2008

In the week leading up to doing this review I'd heard a lot about Jade Palace in Earby, all of it very good.

I often find, when the build-up to something is so good, the event itself can be disappointing. Thankfully, that was not the case here.

I was advised to book a table, which I did, and my sister and I went along on a Friday evening. Booking proved to have been good advice. Although just a few other tables were occupied when we arrived, the restaurant soon filled up.

We were greeted by friendly service and shown straight to our table, where our coats were taken to be hung-up out of the way. Our drinks order was taken quickly, possibly a bit too quickly - we'd barely sat down, but that's a minor complaint.

There was plenty of choice on the menu and when I reached the end of it I'd forgotten what I'd earmarked as possibilities.

We settled on a combination platter to start (£6.95 each). Other starters were all around the £5 or £6 mark. When the platter arrived there were won tons, sesame toast, spare ribs (which my sister assured me were the best she'd ever had), two large spring rolls (also very good) and seaweed. In the past I've never found seaweed to have much flavour, but this was really tasty and soon gone.

All the food was piping hot and after the platter we were already starting to feel full.

For mains my sister went for chicken kung po in a birds nest of noodles (£6.70) and I chose Shanghai-style pork from the chef's specials (£7) with egg fried rice (£2). I normally stick to the same few dishes in Cantonese restaurants, so this was a pleasant change. It came to the table literally sizzling hot. The pork was tender and came with a mixture of baby sweetcorn, carrots and onion. The sauce had a bit of a kick to it, which added nicely to the flavour of the pork and vegetables. It's a dish I would definitely have again.

The rice came in a separate bowl, which a waiter spooned onto my plate then left for me to help myself.

For a dessert, we both decided on a chocolate ice cream brownie (£2.80). This was fairly typical of the ready-made desserts common in these sort of restaurants, but as we enjoyed the first two courses so much it was decided we could forgive that.

Excluding drinks, the bill came to £35.20, very reasonable considering this was one of the best Cantonese meals we've had. Our only complaint - the panpipe version of the greatest hits of the 90s playing on repeat in the background, but a waiter assured us this was much better than the one that included bird noises.

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