Zing Vaa, 55 The Moor, Sheffield
IT'S the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rat, but is it such a big deal any more?
"When I opened the Top Wok, New Year was really a gift from heaven but these days it hardly means anything," says restaurateur Jerry Cheung
"We'll probably get one more decent day out of it: there are a lot more people sharing the cake."
Jerry, who co-ordinated Monday's Chinese festivities at Sheffield City Hall, now runs the Simply Chinese chain, so he should know.
But we're old fashioned.
There has hardly been a year when Food and Drink has not picked up chopsticks to celebrate and this is no different so tonight we are at the Zing Vaa on The Moor, Sheffield.
You can't miss it – well, actually you can, since it is just a doorway leading to a basement restaurant – and, having to eat ahead of New Year, we expect it to be a quiet January night.
It's packed with parties and almost every table is taken.
The Zing Vaa is the granddaddy of Sheffield restaurants, coming up to its 50th year.
"Sheffield's most famous Chinese restaurant" it says on the front page of the menu, and who can deny it?
Generations of Chinese have worked at the Zing Vaa and gone on to open their own places with carbon copies of the menu.
They'll have to copy it again.
The Year of the Rat is going to be auspicious for the Zing Vaa.
Current owner Alan Chung, who has been there for 12 years, plans some big changes, not only to the decor.
"We've had the menu for so long but we're going to have some fusion and some Thai dishes," he promises.
The Zing Vaa, a subterranean, low ceilinged place at the bottom of a staircase with white walls, seats 110 with attentive waiters in smart waistcoats.
We've ordered the prawn crackers to nibble but because there are so many people to serve there's a bit of a wait. We're told we can have them on the house.
For openers we've got spicy squid, excellent for their crisp coating and accurate salt, pepper and garlic seasoning, and rice paper prawns, three of them like spring rolls absolutely jam packed with prawns.
Both dishes cost 3.90 and come garnished with retro orange slices with half a glac cherry.
We have a quarter of crispy aromatic duck (8.90).
These days it's no longer shredded at the table, or the kitchen could just have been in a rush, and it looks it.
The meat is in lumps but it tastes all right and there are more than enough pancakes for once.
It's followed by Phoenix and the Dragon (6.60), a quietly flavoured stir-fry of chicken and king prawns in generous proportions with plenty of extra interest from cashews, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts.
The other dish is sweet and sour pork (5.90), so I can go down Memory Lane about eating it on bachelor Saturday nights in faraway towns.
ZING VAA
55 The Moor, Sheffield. Tel: 0114 275 6633.
Open daily lunch and dinner. Credit cards. Disabled access from the rear car park.
My star ratings (out of five):
Food 4
Atmosphere 3
Service 4
Value 4
Chinese restaurant category. Do not compare ratings between places of different style or price.
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My wife is unimpressed with either the dish or my memories.
It is as it should be with Technicolor flavours, little chunks of pineapple and not as much fat and gristle as you got in East Grinstead in the Sixties.
The egg-fried rice (2) is fine.
Ignore the coloured pictures on the straight-from-the-freezer dessert menu and pick one of their own.
The grilled pancake filled with a sweet red bean paste (3.80) may not suit wholly Western palates.
It’s probably because it comes garnished with parsley and lettuce as well as lemon and a cherry but I liked the sweetness against the sesame crunch.
Our meal, a fond goodbye to the old Zing Vaa, cost us 46.60 with drinks and coffee.
Catch it before the revamp.
n Tomorrow in The Star, read Jane Cartledge’s Family Matters on how a Chinese family celebrates.
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Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
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