The name's not important.

Unless of course you're looking for a specific place at which stage it becomes helpful. It's at the Parnell Street end, a sprawling canteen-like space with fluorescent lighting, young Chinese customers and older busy staff.

The place smells good when you walk in. In appearance it's a bit raggedy at the edges, with regular kitchen tables and chairs like a job lot from Bargaintown and plastic plates. It's not posh. The atmosphere though is fullon, busy and professional.

The menu here is longer than at the Parnell Street version. Big on length, short on description, in the English version at least . . .beef with chilli, hot and sour pork. It means you have to choose on the basis of not much information and hope for the best. In our case that was what we did.

There are exotic things and very straightforward things. It's the little differences between the two that keep you interested.

Fried guts in one place, fried intestines in the other.

I'm not sure which I'd prefer. What's unusual about the menu is that there's only one and it's in Chinese and English. So unlike most Chinese places that get a mixed crowd, everybody here is working off the same material.

Prices are low and portions are big. Hot and sour aubergine came crispy fried in a sticky sweet spicy sauce, a great combination of textures and flavours.

Dry fried beef with chilli was strips of marinated steak fried with coriander, Chinese celery and chilli. It was delicately flavoured and more subtle than it first appeared, with the fresh crunchiness of the vegetables contrasting with the warm spiciness of the beef. Diced pork came stir fried with peanuts and radishes in a treacly sweet sauce. We had two huge plates of fried rice with egg, beautifully cooked and seasoned, and Chinese beer.

The price for all of this was under 30.

Their place on Parnell Street is a bit more upmarket in feel. It's smaller and lit lower, staffed by a group of young people who are all very friendly.

They have a standard takeaway menu and throughout our visit people were coming and going, placing and collecting orders. It was mildly chaotic but comfortable, and watching the mix of people in the place was interesting. We ordered two meat dishes, one vegetable and a special fried rice.

Prices are the same as on Moore Street and portions are just as enormous.

Beef with chilli and cumin was tenderised slices of beef fried in a wok with chilli oil and cumin seed. It was an intense dish, the earthy perfume of the cumin and the glow of the chilli working together to create something that was unlike anything that I've had in a Chinese restaurant before. Hot and sour pork came minced and stir fried with coriander stalks, garlic and dried chilli, flavoured with sweet soy. The citrus-y freshness of the coriander cut the richness of the pork and we soaked up the sweet sticky sauce with excellent fried rice. Chinese cabbage with dark smoky mushrooms was sauteed and finished with a light cornflour-thickened stock.

That was the only hint of gloopiness in the meal.

China House special fried rice was a huge pile with little prawns, chicken and vegetables. The price for two beers and an embarrassing amount of food for a couple was less than 40.

This is a long way from Chinese food as we have known it in Ireland. The use of fresh ingredients and strong clear flavours made the food here exciting and very distinctive. They seem to have a policy in both places of being particularly friendly, and while it's not high-end eating by any means you can tell that the people behind it care about what they're doing. To get fed and watered this well at these prices in Dublin now is unusual. To have a choice of locations to do it in seems like a luxury.

WHAT'S THE DEAL?

Highlight Cooking, value, friendliness Lowlight Choosing Beef with chilli and cumin 8.50 Hot and sour pork 8 Chinese cabbage and mushroom 6 China House fried rice 6.50 2 x Tsingtao @ 3.50 7 Fried rice 3 Total: 39 China House 180 Parnell Street Dublin 1 Tel: 01 873 3870