IT was a sad day when one of our favourite Indian restaurants closed down. But things looked up when this Chinese takeaway opened on the same spot and we were keen to try it out.

The Park Gates premises have been done up very smartly, with a shiny open kitchen and sofas in the waiting area.

The menu is so comprehensive it took the four of us quite a while to choose. As well as a huge range of Chinese food there are also Thai and Malaysian dishes, and a vegetarian section, which even includes ‘veggie duck’, served with the traditional pancakes, cucumber, spring onion and hoi sin sauce.

You can also create your own dish, by choosing a main ingredient and a sauce to mix it with.

Our feast included King Prawn Kung Po, vegetable chow mein, vegetable chop suey, fried rice and one from the vegetarian section – Ma Po Tofu, bean curd in a garlic spicy sauce.

We also had King Prawn Honey Chilli – chef’s speciality. We had two over-riding impressions when the food arrived – the hugeness of the prawns and the abundance and variety of very fresh vegetables in the dishes.

The honey chilli sauce was a bit too sweet for us, so perhaps we should have paid more attention to the name of it rather than being carried away by its novelty value.

Everything else was top-notch, including the free prawn crackers. And we were very taken with the smart cardboard carton the food arrived in. Our bill came to just over £25.