I don’t think I’ve ever seen Glamorous so busy in an evening. As usual, most customers were Chinese, with a scattering of Anglos. Now, of course, a high percentage of customers from an ethnic background doesn’t guarantee quality. If it did, Harvesters would have Michelin stars. But it’s not a bad starting point. And Glamorous is the only Cantonese restaurant that we visit with any regularity (and, even then, not that often).
There were king prawns to start. Eight of them, coated in a light but crisp batter. There’s a smear of a Chinese “satay” sauce. This isn’t the peanutty sauce that you’d find in, say, an Indonesian restaurant. But it is very savoury. And very hot from chilli. I followed that with dish of duck and plum sauce that I’ve had before. It’s good. A generous serving of a duck breast, coated in batter and deepfried before being sliced thickly. The sauce wasn’t as good as I recalled from a couple of years back. Less fruity and a bit of a feeling that a jar had been opened, rather than any real cooking going on. I still managed to hoover everything up, along with fried rice.
Meanwhile, Veggie Vera had started with spring rolls – crisp and flavoursome from shitake mushroom with a nice vinegary dipping sauce. That was followed with a vegetarian version of the Hong Kong classic of Singapore noodles. It may not have been the best dining decision of the month. It was mainly noodles, more than you might have thought there would be. And only a small amount of veg in it – bean sprouts, green pepper and spring onion. It was just boring and quite a bit of it was left (to be boxed up as a doggy bag).