Kwok Brasserie

The 2013 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

This review is taken from the current (2013) edition.

Over the road from the real ale favouring John Leslie pub, Kwok Brasserie has been feeding hungry students and local residents for more than a decade. A family-run business, Rebecca Kwok leads a friendly team looking after couples and large groups with equal ease and charm. The standard fare is supplemented by interesting sounding daily specials. Rather than playing it safe with spare ribs, it can be more rewarding to sample an iceberg wrap filled with cashew and meat, scooping the warm, nutty filling into crunchy lettuce leaves as you go. For mains, the aubergine hot pot is brimming full of plentiful mushrooms and cubed aubergine dressed in lightly chillied sauce, but the chunks of chicken feel slightly industrialised, lacking freshness to match the vegetables. Sizzling king prawns dressed in ginger, spring onions and garlic are tender, if slightly swamped in stir-fried onion. But it is vegetarians who get shortest shrift, when the initially extensive list of options delivers the same uninspired stir-fry veggie mix, albeit prepared in any of 25 ways.

• High point: Hands-on and friendly proprietress
• Low point: Presentation is a bit uninspiring