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centre, next to the Hilton. Not exactly a hotbed for restaurants, and not somewhere I often pass on foot. It seems, though, that not everyone’s been in the dark this whole time – there were already people in when I arrived for my 6pm (don’t judge) dinner. Immediately greeted, seated and delivered prawn crackers and water, I was pretty chilled from the get-go, thanks to the on-it, friendly staff. There really is a huge variety of dishes on the menu (even the most fiercely decisive might be stopped in their tracks), which is sectioned into to soups, appetisers, mains, vegetarian, curries, noodle dishes and rice dishes. At the back you’ll find sides, set meals, and the lunchtime menu. Ah, and there’s a new Vietnamese menu now too, with steamed rice rolls, pho and the like. Given all that, the chosen tactic was, as is usual, to panic order. And, happily, it turned out rather well. The king prawn tom yum soup (£5.20) was delicately hot and sour, the orange aromatic broth fresh with lime and lemongrass and hiding plenty of veg and fat prawns. A vegetable yuk sung (£5) was particularly keenly portioned; the finely chopped, carefully spiced wok-fried filling coming in a generous mound alongside sizeable, super-crisp iceberg lettuce leaves to wrap it with. Gyoza dumplings (£5.20) had been well-fried to make the dough crisp and give a good bit of crunch, and came with an addictively salty soy dip. We could have left with full bellies at this point – happy that we’d managed to scoff dishes from no fewer than three different countries already – but we obviously did no such thing. I continued the Japanese run by going from gyoza to chicken katsu curry (£11.80), which came with steamed rice. The moist, dense chicken breast had been flattened out, coated with chunky panko breadcrumbs and fried for a really crisp outer that held its own even when smothered with lashings of thick, smooth and mildly spiced katsu sauce. Properly comforting. My mate’s Indonesian king prawn nasi goreng (£10.50) was just as much of a hit, the fried rice nicely warm with chilli and salty with shrimp paste. The onions, veg and curled-up prawns provided lots of contrasting texture in the hearty bowl. I’d have no reservations about going back here, or recommending it to anyone after a decent Asian restaurant in the city. The menu is familiar (and did I mention pretty varied?), and the food tasted fresh, was generously portioned, and properly hit the spot. That’s
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without leaving us with that heaviness you can sometimes get from a Chinese takeaway, though. Turns out, we aren’t the only ones to think it’s pretty decent, either: Pan Asia won Best Restaurant in the South at the 2017 British Chinese Food Awards in December, don’t you know? So, feel free to panic-order away. Pan Asia, York House, Bond Street, Bristol BS1 3LQ; 01179 428 462; panasiabristol.com
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