Asia Flavours: American Peking Restaurant (7/10)

I'm always looking for restaurants that you can go to for a group meal where the food is good, the atmosphere loud enough that you don't feel embarrassed if you're a little noisy and the wine cheap enough that, despite loosing track of the number of bottles ordered, you don't get a sharp pain in your wallet when the bill arrives. The American Peking Restaurant in Wan Chai is one of those credit-crunch friendly places that is particularly good for group dining, with tasty, reliable food and some surprisingly cheap wine available on the menu. At HK$120 a bottle, the wine is not exactly of the highest quality but then it's an evening out in Wan Chai...

The only downside to the group dining area upstairs is that the combination of rather large round tables, closely spaced together and low ceilings is that the noise levels can get really quite high. The problem only escalates throughout the night and you really need to talk loudly to be able to have any form of conversation across the table.

The food was varied and interesting with spicy aubergine and minced pork being one of my favourites. The sizzler dish of seafood added a touch of drama to the evening and was as tasty as it looked. The only dish that didn't really pass muster was the lemon chicken which was so neon in colouring that it looked like it had had a bit of a run-in with a nuclear reactor somewhere along the way. Despite the extreme yellow food colouring overload, it didn't taste particularly lemony which was all a bit odd.