That was Zen - this is now

New Chinese restaurants are thin on the ground these days. Thanks to this country's labyrinthine entrance requirements and probably their good sense, emigrants from Hong Kong at the time of the hand-over tended to head for Australia and Canada. Our myopia and xenophobia is doubtless those countries' culinary gain.

When new places do open they tend to be a shake-down of old associations. Faces at PHOENIX PALACE are familiar from the Zen group. Indeed, the last time I saw Phillip Chan, who seems to be in charge of the operation, he was managing Zen in Chelsea Cloisters.

Phoenix Palace has been installed in what was Viceroy of India restaurant in Glentworth Street, not far from Baker Street. Traces of the former regime hang around in the shape of Hindu carvings on the walls. It creates a rather odd effect but presumably saves on the purchase of decorations. The layout of the large premises takes the form of galleried seating around a central well with more tables located behind a substantial bar area. This last has given rise to a cocktail list that kicks off with China Bomber and Hong Kong Sling but we ignored those in order to focus more acutely on the long menu.

Four of us were able to try quite a spread of dishes and the consensus was that in the kitchen must work a good chef and a not-so-good chef. The good chef had seemingly prepared the first courses of mixed seafood wrapped in lettuce leaves and crispy prawn croquette and the main courses of fried prawns with scrambled egg (fabulous), stir-fried eel with roasted belly pork, steamed boneless chicken with ham and vegetables and the excellent hot-pot dish (served out of its pot) of stuffed bean curd with mixed meats soup.

The less good chef must have had a hand in the satay chicken skewer - a bizarre deep-fried interpretation - and the dull honey barbecued pork chop among our first courses and maybe had come up with the idea of using a sort of Texas Bar-B-Que sauce with steamed crab. The rice wine and egg-white treatment which we were told had "run out" sounded infinitely preferable and much kinder to the crab. He was probably to blame for the lack of zing in shredded pork with preserved vegetables and possibly even had sourced the awful polystyrene flowers which replaced hand-carved vegetables in the presentation. However, the good dishes outweighed the bad and proved that authentic Cantonese cooking is the kitchen's strong suit, which is the right way round. It adds ammunition to the usual advice of avoid the set meals; there is much delicious to discover among the 215 dishes offered à la carte. Phoenix Palace serves a comprehensive dim sum (dumpling) and noodle menu during the day and special lunch dishes at £4.80 which include temptingsounding (to me anyway) assemblies such as stewed fish ball with whole garlic and roasted belly pork; beef brisket in soup with Chinese celery; fried assorted eggs with minced pork; sea-spice beancurd with roasted duck; pan-fried scrambled egg with chopped shrimp and preserved cabbage - in other words, the real thing. After a bottle of lamentable Chilean Chardonnay

from the limited wine list, the Beaujolais Villages which we chilled slightly in the Chilean's ice bucket turned out to be not a bad bet at £16 to deal with the hubbub of flavours.

Service means well but in some hands is grimly relentless.

Phoenix Palace
Glentworth Street, London, NW1 5PG