Seventeen, one of my local Chinese restaurants, was 50% off on top table and I thought why not give it another go – see if the reason I didn’t rate it on my last visit was because Pat and I hadn’t chosen the right dishes.

Well, I’m still not convinced … certainly not enough to pay the full price at any rate.

Tonight no cocktails but tea. Tea which came in the cutest littlest teapots and the cutest littlest teacups – I’d be surprised if there was more than a few mouthfuls in the cups! At least they were pretty good at refilling our pots!

Without really thinking about it we ended up getting three dishes which were deep fried. For starters Crispy Soft Shell Crab tossed with garlic, chilli and sea salt and Golden Calamari tossed in mixed herbs, pepper and garlic. Quite similar in flavouring to each other to be honest.

For mains it was Taste of the Sea which consisted of Lobster, king scallop, cod fillet with soft shell crab. Served with asparagus, red onion, baby corn and spring onion, in the chef’s special sake sauce. I quite enjoyed this dish, which was surprisingly sweet, but was very disappointed to find that the soft shell crab had been fried. I guess its not often served unfried but still. Along with this we chose the Mango duck (duck breast stir fried with mango, mixed greens in orange dressing.) This wasn’t bad but duck probably wasn’t the best meat to go with the mango.

Overall the food was okay but not stunning. I guess we still didn’t really challenge the Sichuanese aspect of the restaurant though we did try a couple of dishes with some twists to it Good value for the 50% but portions are still relatively small otherwise. I can’t say I’d become a regular but would keep it as an option as long as the 50% offer was around.