Acouple of months back, reader Angie Chong took me to task for my review of China Sichuan in Sandyford, Dublin. She didn't put much of a tooth in it. The gist of what she had to say was that I wouldn't know good authentic Chinese food if it walked up and hit me in the face. Like most Irish people I am convinced that Chinese customers in Chinese restaurants are the only ones who know how to order the really good stuff off the menu while the rest of us end up opting for the chicken in black bean sauce and sweet and sour pork (again) because they're the only things on the menu that we recognise. So I put it up to Angie, suggesting that she might consider accompanying me on a review and begin the process of my education. Gamely, she accepted the challenge.

I was initially a tad disappointed that Angie's choice of restaurant was the Imperial on Wicklow Street, somewhere I already knew. I had been hoping that she might lead me to a gem on Parnell Street – a new discovery with which I might casually impress my friends. But then I remembered that any time I'd ever eaten in the Imperial it had been full of big groups of noisy Chinese families, eating happily. I cheered up.

Angie turned out to be a glamorous paediatrician who has been living in Ireland since she came to study at the Royal College of Surgeons some 20 years ago. At the outset we were brought the standard Irish menu – the one featuring the aforementioned chicken in black bean sauce and sweet and sour Pork – but Angie waved it away in favour of the very extensive authentic Chinese menu. I was glad to see that it is written in English as well as Chinese, although it has to be said that some of the descriptions left me none the wiser as to what the dish in question might involve – deep-fried fun quor, for example, or steamed rind and fish balls.

I left the ordering to Angie. From the dim sum menu we had delicious crispy bean curd rolls (€4.20) – prawns wrapped in the lightest pastry made of very thin sheets of bean curd – and pan-fried dumplings (€6) of minced pork with chives and garlic. Angie said that these should have been thinner, and they weren't as flavoursome as the version they serve across the street in Aya where they're called gyoza. From the mains, Angie opted for char siu with honey sauce (€12) – a substantial portion of lean, tasty pork – and fried seafood noodle (€17) – a bowl of noodles, soft in the centre and crispy round the edges, topped with a mixture of scallops, prawns and squid in a sauce with pak choi – a dish exemplifying the yin and yang philosophy inherent in Chinese food. This I found a touch bland, but Angie said it was as it should be. Ordered off menu was ma po tofu – minced pork and tofu in a sauce with which Angie was unimpressed, thinking that it should have been much spicier. (Our waiter said that they recently had to tone down the dish because of complaints that it was too spicy.) The Imperial serves Cantonese food, which would not be as spicy as Sichuan cuisine from further north.

Service verged on the offhand – Angie says that the Irish expect more from their restaurant experience and therefore tend to be more demanding, service-wise. The Chinese tend, she tells me, to be happy so long as they get a decent plate of food.

The Imperial has had a smart makeover since I last visited – there is little left in terms of décor to let you know that you are in a Chinese restaurant. The amount of food that we ordered would have been enough for four people, and the bill came to ¤74.80 including service and a couple of soft drinks.

PS: When Mark, the lovely Tribune photographer, went to take the photo to accompany this piece, as is standard practice, he was charmlessly refused permission.

The Imperial

12A Wicklow Street, Dublin 2.

Tel: 01 677 2580

Rating: 3/5 (Angie) and 2/5 (Katy)