yes i would have been proud to do that John and as a matter of fact, i did EXACTLY that on the same night, hence the reason we couldn't come.
we would av loved to of been there but we already had a prior engagement with some friends, my m8 sat there next to his missus, a pure connoisseur of food. he is larger than me and Ray put together and the best part is he knows exactly what each dish is every where we go
now i hear you saying Chinese is not so good but i beg to differ. i believe the truth is that there are so many Chinese restaurants out there that they have become a "conveyor belt" type of food of which there are so many restaurants serving mediocre food. 2 things i need to bring to attention that i don't think the majority will have the experience to differentiate from is that generally, people only know the "take out/restaurant" Chinese food. if you want proper Chinese food then you have to eat with a Chinese family as i did time after time as a teenager cos my best m8 back then was Chinese. their food is nothing like the take away standard crap you get served and i can tell you, it's superb.
the other one is as we did that night, in Chesterfield we went to an "eat all you want" restaurant of the highest quality. we have been to so many that we have wheedled it down to the best as we see it. they don't buffet style it, they cook to order and as many times as you like. 4 of us sat down and ordered 10 starters, ate that and ordered another 4. main meal dishes... i say why bother filling yourself up with noodles and rice when things like king prawn dishes are on offer? we ordered about another 12 dishes for 4 people and reordered another 5. even Sue wobbled out of the place for being so fat like feeling.
i've been lucky enough to eat roper Chinese food with a family. proper Cantonese with a family. Proper Greek with many greek families and again proper Italian with many Italian families. i probably know far more foreign nationality people than english but my belly is happy about that fact
glad you all had a great night but a dam shame we couldn't make it.