Joy King Lau

The joy of Joy King Lau is its steadfast refusal to deviate from the old Chinatown line. While others promote regional cuisine, smarten their premises and slicken their service, here you get a voluminous roll-call of Cantonese classics, a utilitarian three-storey eating den, and hurtling staff who veer between sweetly swift and abrasively brusque.

We were barged out of the slightly gloomy ground floor and squeezed into an antediluvian lift up to the surprisingly airy, light second floor. It's best to come during the day and order dim sum; the full menu of myriad stir-fries is prosaic in comparison.

Portions are large; nearby, four diners were tucking into heaped meal-in-one platefuls of noodles with messy gusto. The dim sum seems to have improved of late. All our snacks were served piping hot and full of flavour.

Best was the grilled dried shrimp cheung fun, still radiating heat from its crisp exterior; best bargain was the 'assorted meat glutinous rice', a hefty helping full of ham, pork, chicken and sausages for £3.80. Fried snacks are brought first, so our deep-fried custard buns had to be consumed early.

Yes, some snacks lack finesse, but we left satisfied and replete.