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Home » Oriental Palace, 38 Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells, TN4 8AU

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Oriental Palace, 38 Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells, TN4 8AU

Oriental Palace, 38 Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells, TN4 8AU

38 Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells, TN4 8AU

01892 536698

If you were to give me a choice I would not go to a Chinese Restaurant. I’m not entirely sure if it was my first experience, going to my “girlfriend” Barbara Muir’s birthday party as a ten year old at the Hong Kong in Dundee or not. I was a dead cert for the Chicken Maryland, but Barbara’s dad Jim insisted I try the sweet and sour pork. Sour? Where was the bloody sour? It was sweet, sweet, sweet, sticky, gooey, violent infra-red gloop surrounding a bit of pig. It was so horrible I didn’t eat anything remotely Chinese until I was in my twenties. Even then it was a backdoor through. I fell in love with Korean food – bitter Kim Chee and barbecued Bul Gogi - a heavenly combination with noodles and sticky rice. Korean through to Thai, Indonesian, subtle Vietnamese and finally to fiery Szechuan and ceremoniously dumped on the door of Cantonese.

I went to Hong Kong (the real one) later on in my late twenties and careered round Pekingese, Shanghai cuisine, my beloved Szechuan and resisted once again the call of the overwhelming pull of the Cantonese restaurants. I even ate Korean (bizarrely really cheap in Hong Kong).

And so for many years I survived in London, because I could, at rude shout-houses in Chinatown, eating varying dishes from all manner of cuisines. Cantonese was good, as long as it was in Chinatown.

And so, from one provincial town to another and what is there to say? We scarpered out for a quick feed, Q needed to eat and the Oriental Palace was open and not full.
I suggested we look at the menu outside. She reminded me that I do not like Chinese Restaurants. I knew she was hungry, said a few encouraging words about the menu and we went in.

Two tasty hot and sour soups were swiftly delivered and dispatched, two main courses of char sui and stir fry were adequate, hot, but a little tasteless and we were out within an hour. Red carpets, polite and swift service, average food, no tsing tao. OK because it can only ever be OK. M 2008

By m at 18/04/2008 - 17:55 | 2008 | Chinese | Kent | OK | Review | Service | £££/$$$ | add new comment | read more | 98 reads

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