Chinese lunch double-quick à la Szechuan
LAST time I mentioned this place, I didn’t actually refer to it by name. It was 13 months ago and I was desperately looking for somewhere, anywhere, to review early in the new year. Many places remain closed well after the Christmas break, of course, and there is always the chance the ones that are open will be jam-packed with large groups of families pretending to like each other. So it was against such a backdrop that I tried getting a table at The Orchid Szechuan back in January 2014.
All things considered, it didn’t go well. Here’s what I wrote at the time about the gent who took my call: ‘He answered in the hesitant, slightly suspicious tone of a fugitive spy in a John Le Carré screen adaptation who’d just realised someone had found the number to his secret bolthole. Undeterred, however, I pressed on. “Hello,” I began, “are you open for lunch?” There are really only two answers to that question, each of one syllable. But the reply came: “What time do you want to come at?” Two o’clock, I said. If the pause that followed wasn’t quite pregnant, it had certainly made an anxious visit to the chemist’s to pick up a testing kit. At long last, though, he said it: “Will 1.30 be all right?”’
Now I fully accept that me quoting myself verbatim like that is a bit of a swizz, especially if you’d already read it first time around. But there’s method to my madness, which we’ll come to. Besides, rest assured that the bean counters in here will count the words, do the sums and adjust my modest stipend downwards accordingly.
I didn’t entertain the thought of a 1.30pm booking for a moment. It was less to do with the timing than the principle. Frankly, I’d requested one thing and he had offered me something completely different. Picture yourself going into a shoe shop, say, and asking to try on a pair of black Chelsea boots in size nine. Now imagine how annoyed you’d be if the assistant returned from the storeroom and handed you a pair of blue suede shoes in size three-and-a-half. Exactly the same thing.
To cut a long story short, I vowed there and then never to darken the door of The Orchid Szechuan. I’ve passed by maybe a hundred times since and just kept on walking.
The fact that I finally relented is totally unconnected to the Chinese New Year celebrations now being under way. No, it was more to do with the following inter-related factors: (a) the Orchid is close to the office; (b) my lunch companion has a proper grown-up’s job and needed to get back to work quickly; and (c) it looked like it was about to start raining.
We arrived just before 1.45pm and were led straight to a table right next to the only other customer in the place. More out of consideration to him than anything else, we moved to a table further back. Our bums were barely on the seats before there was someone over to take the order.
When we asked for a couple of minutes more, they took us at our word and were back – I’d hazard a guess – not a moment longer than 120 seconds later. It was at this point that we were informed that the kitchen was closing at two o’clock. This was all beginning to feel a bit familiar. Now I hate to be a stickler here, but the restaurant’s own website clearly states that the lunch menu is available between 12pm and 2.30pm. At worst, that suggests to me that you’d still be able to place an order up until ten past two or thereabouts. Who knows? Maybe they just knock off early when business is quiet.
Thankfully, things picked up after that. There are two lunchtime options: the standard two-course menu for €14.50 – with supplements for some of the beef, duck and seafood dishes – or a €19.50 dim sum menu.
My starter of chicken sung – diced breast of chicken fried and served in crisp lettuce leaves – was delicious. The Wal Tip main course – four generously proportioned pork dumplings – was also very good. My friend kicked off with an impressively sized plateful of shredded chicken and followed up with a main course that had more than its fair share of fat, juicy prawns. We also had ample helpings of fried rice and Singapore noodles. Meanwhile, though there seemed to be more than few cheekily pitched entries on the wine list, we found a reasonably priced and very good Riesling from New Zealand.
We didn’t get off to the best of starts, me and The Orchid Szechuan. Credit where it is due, though, the food is very good indeed. And the two young waitresses who looked after us were charm personified.
Mind you, I’d still like to shake that bloke on the phone by the neck. Whoever he is.