IT was early on a mid-week evening and we were looking for somewhere to grab a bite to eat, when we discovered Little Asia.

Neither of us had heard of it before, but the first thing that struck us was the fact that the place was buzzing.

Although it’s not big, it seats around 32 diners, it was packed with Chinese families and students which I find is usually a good sign.

We were given a warm welcome, shown to one of the few remaining free tables and handed a substantial 12-page booklet which turned out to be the menu.

Inside there was a mind boggling array of dishes accompanied by pictures of food and exotic sounding drinks like grass jelly with coconut milk.

There are no set menus, so we ordered two bottles of Tsing Tao beer while we leafed through the pages.

For starters we opted for the House Special Mixed Hors D’oevres which included spring rolls, dry ribs, seaweed, satay chicken on skewers, sesame prawn toasts and side dishes of peanut sauce and sweet chilli dip.

There was plenty of food and most of it was good quality apart from the prawn toasts which tasted a bit fatty.

For mains we decided to share two dishes and a portion of egg fried rice.

We plumped for king prawns with ginger and spring onions. The prawns were big and fleshy, but overall the dish lacked flavour and the vegetables were a bit soggy.

But what this dish lacked in taste was more than made up for by the spicy Kung Po chicken which had enough kick to set our taste buds tingling and was packed with crunchy red and green peppers and chunks of onion.

The rice was perfectly cooked with a good smattering of fluffy yellow egg.

As we sat and savoured the food and atmosphere, it was easy to imagine that we were in a busy, bright street cafe in the Far East, rather than a back road of Bournemouth.

This is a place that offers no frills food – and plenty of it. We were even asked if we wanted to take the leftovers home which I thought was a nice touch.

If you do decide to visit Little Asia, make sure you’re hungry and take cash as it doesn’t accept cards.

OUR BILL

House Special Mixed Hor’s D’oevres £12

King Prawns with ginger and spring onions £7

Kung Po Chicken £6

Egg fried rice £2.90

Two beers £6

TOTAL £33.90