The Orient at its best

FORGET your average Chinese restaurant, this is a taste of the Orient at its best.

China Boy Jo has a range of mouth-watering meals to choose from.

The surroundings are bright and modern in what was once an old pub.

The menu has a section on how the owners had a dream of running a restaurant and how they set about achieving their ambition.

I had a starter of peppered spare ribs which had a lovely flavour, while my partner chose Thai pancake with diced chicken and a chilli sauce. Both were priced at under £5 each.

For the main course I chose barbecue roast duck cooked in Cantonese style for £6.50. The portions were ample and mixed with a special Thai rice (£5) that was blended with lemongrass and coriander to produce a very tasty meal.

As with all Chinese meals it is often a case of mix and match and my partner's choice of deep fried shredded beef with chilli (£6.50) was mixed with special fried rice (£5) and was definitely a hot number.

For afters, nicely phrased as 'sweet as a kiss' in the menu had lots of choices - all priced at £3.85 - involving lychees.

As we had never tried the fruit before we were given a taster by the waiter and found it very refreshing after the hot chilli.

But we chose to have 'balls of fire' - little ninja banana balls coated in toffee which arrived at the table well alight! We also had ice cream covered in raisins.

It was a very good meal, and with a bottle of wine the total bill came to £50.