Crab Noodles - Young Cheng, Lisle Street

Chinatown restaurants often get a bad reputation; shoddy service, grubby interiors and that elusive Chinese menu for special Chinese people. It is mostly true, but I'm half Chinese so I don't feel the pain of it much; our waiter at Young Cheng last night said of the English menu - 'it's for all the 'gweilos', don't use that one', he joked in Cantonese. It's not fair but I don't see it changing anytime soon; had I not been with my mother (who reads Chinese; I don't) I'd have been lumped with the inferior menu too.

But what was available to all was on a special laminated card, the lobster or crab noodles. We ordered the latter to start, priced at a very reasonable £12.80. The behemoth above arrived and was what seemed like two crabs, cooked with ginger and spring onion on a bed of crispy noodles. Shell crackers and pickers were provided along with a bowl to wash your hands in.

It's not for people who don't enjoy getting a bit messy. The parts of the crab are smothered in a slightly gloopy savoury sauce, making everything a bit slimy and tricky to manage but as we cracked our way through the shells sucking and picking out the sweet crab meat, I didn't mind one bit. The noodles soaked up the sauce, slowly becoming softer and softer. Easily a meal for two with a vegetable dish on the side, it was quite a bargain.

Young Cheng

22 Lisle Street
London WC2H 7BA

Note there is also a Young Cheng on Shaftesbury Avenue - I'm talking about the Lisle Street branch.