Lou Shang, St Annes, restaurant review: Contrasting fortunes in tale of two restaurants

As fans of Thai food we had looked forward to visiting Thai Spice Paradise on St Andrew's Road South in St Annes after reading a number of positive reviews about its food.

Knowing space was tight, we had booked several days in advance, but on arrival the place was full with no table reserved for us.

Even after agreeing to return half an hour later, the only table offered was postage stamp sized facing a wall which was not acceptable to us.

These things occasionally happen unfortunately, but famished by now we decided to take no chances so our next port of call was a restaurant I can honestly say has never let us down.

The Lou Shang Cantonese Restaurant in St Annes Square.sits above Tesco Express with an entrance from an unprepossessing door giving access to stairs which lead you into an immediate oasis of calm.

The restaurant was beginning to quieten down as by now most people had already enjoyed their meals, and we were shown to a prime window table overlooking the Square.

A bottle of the house white was soon brought over, along with a jug of tap water as we perused the menu.

We opted for the special banquet at £22.50 a head, and before long were happily tucking into the first course of hot and sour soup for my husband Clive, and chicken and sweetcorn soup for me.

Both were excellent and set us up for the Dim Sum combination which is a great way of sharing a selection of bite-sized starters, especially if you like them all and cannot choose between the individual portions.

Crunchy prawn toast with seaweed, spare ribs with meat which fell off the bone, hot spring rolls, chicken pieces and pork dumplings were soon devoured.

But it can be messy so you need a break afterwards to clean up sticky fingers ahead of the main courses arriving.

As part of our banquet these were fillet steak Cantonese style, chicken with blackbean sauce and young chow fried rice.

If there are more people in your group, additional dishes will be king prawns and sweet and sour pork.

They are all staples of a Chinese feast, so the more adventurous may opt to pick from the main menu, but sometimes a simpler order is required.

Both meat dishes were tender, and accompanied by sauces packed with flavour, with crunchy peppers.

Service was outstanding throughout with plenty of staff, and it is clear many diners are regulars enjoying chats with the proprietors.

Larger groups of people or those dining in pairs or alone, enjoy the same attention to detail.

When the bill arrives,it is accompanied by a fortune cookie - I would suggest dining here is good fortune in itself.

Our bill, including drinks, came to £63.

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