Glamorous, Wing Yip Business Centre, Oldham Road, Manchester

DINING at the Glamorous Chinese restaurant is something of a surreal experience.

It is located slightly out of the town at the Wing Yip Business Centre on Oldham Road but has a good reputation, so I'm expecting a small family restaurant with the emphasis on fine Chinese food.

I'm surprised when, after negotiating the steps of a multi-storey car park and finding a hidden entrance, I find a huge room that must accommodate at least 500 customers.

It has, to be kind, striking décor, with huge historical Chinese scenes on several of the walls and constantly changing neon lights in the cornicing that give a strange hue to proceedings - a bit like eating inside a lava lamp. But I'm encouraged by the fact that the place is packed, and mostly with Chinese families sharing table-filling banquets.

We're seated and the waiter takes our drink orders while we try to choose from the massive selection of dishes - more than 200 not including banquets and with an impressive wine list.

The drinks, a pint of bitter (£2.60) and bottle of Tiger beer (£2.80), come within seconds. The service can be compared to a small military operation. Scores of staff bustle in between tables, most of them wearing bodyguard-style earpieces, ferrying piles of steaming plates of richly-coloured food to families on big round tables.

We decide the best course of action is to go for one of the banquets, rather than puzzle for hours over the extensive menu. We opt for set banquet C, which is £26.50 per person (minimum two people) and begins with a tasty Won Ton soup.

Following the soup is a big plate of all the things great about Chinese food - prawn toast, salt and pepper ribs, crispy seaweed, spring rolls, deep fried prawn parcels - yummy. Only the fillet spring rolls in barbeque sauce are left on the platter, because at the time we're not sure what they are.

After a much-needed break, the aromatic crispy duck and pancakes come. Nothing special to report really and that's one of the problems with Chinese food. It tastes so luscious that you only really notice when something is really bad, and it has to be extraordinarily good to stand out from the norm.

The duck is followed by a course of chicken wrapped in lettuce, but with the mains to come we leave most of this. The house red, a Chilean merlot (£13.50), is going down well though.

Unfortunately by the time the tasty main courses come we've both pigged out so much we can only manage a few mouthfuls of the chicken fillet in satay sauce and kung po king prawn. It obviously happens a lot as the faultless staff take it away and bring it back in a bag to take home.

The whole experience is wonderfully odd, not least because the view out of the windows is of the inside of the adjoining multi-storey car park. At least there's plenty of parking, but it's perhaps not the best place for a romantic meal. All in all, with service charge, the final bill is £76.90 but we did eat more than are own body weights. Great food, reasonable prices, strange neon.

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