REMEMBER your first Chinese meal? I do. It was about 25 years ago when my parents brought home this strange-smelling food in cartons and tried to teach me the basics of chopsticks.

Unfortunately the sticky orange sweet and sour sauce went flying that evening, leaving a nasty stain on the lounge carpet.

It's interesting how cosmopolitan our palates have become and we now think nothing of tucking into Chinese, Indian, Thai or classic Italian food.

The evening I went to the Mandarin Chef, there were diners of all sorts. An elderly couple took one of the corner tables, there was a couple with a baby and young child just over the way, and two businessmen were expertly picking their way through their dishes with some adept chopstick handling.

The Mandarin Chef lies just a couple of miles outside of Romsey in the village of Crampmoor on the Winchester Road. It's not too difficult to find. The surroundings are more typical English than classic Mandarin restaurant. But the service from the staff was slick and attentive, and the food was extremely good value.

When you go somewhere new, the set menu is a good starting-point. But this time I plumped straight for the general menu, although the restaurant does also have an 'eat as much as you like' menu which looked promising.

Sesame prawns provided a savoury starter, while my colleague plumped for the salty pepper ribs, which proved a pretty substantial dish.We then chose a few dishes and threw them together as part of the main meal - duck with pineapple, prawns with satay sauce, fried mixed vegetables, fried noodles with beanshoots and egg fried rice.

It turned out to be a royal feast. They don't scrimp on the servings, and there was no way either of us could clear our plates.

It's nice to try a different sort of meat, and duck with pineapple made a winning combination. Prawn with satay sauce had a strong rich taste to it, cooked with onions, bamboo shoots and green pepper. The copious amounts of vegetables, noodles and rice set off the meal nicely.

There is nothing flash or fancy about the Mandarin Chef, but you can't argue with the food. The meal for two with drinks came to a very respectable £41.

Reservations: 01794 512170 or 01794 512078.