Last week I was invited along to Chung Ying Central on Colmore Row in Birmingham. This is one of three restaurants in the Chung Ying group and I had never visited any of them, so I was excited to see what they had to offer. As soon as I arrived I was handed a Shanghai Rose cocktail which was absolutely delicious and contained vodka, lychee liqueur, lychee juice and rose syrup. I could have drank these all night, definitely a new favourite drink!

James, one of the co-owners of the Chung Ying group had put together a menu especially for us bloggers which featured a lot of different dishes – none of them were the sort of thing that I would usually have when I go to a Chinese restaurant. I am quite fussy with food and absolutely won’t eat prawns, so there were a few dishes that I didn’t try because they contained prawns however I really enjoyed what I did try. My favourite dish was definitely the Chicken Karaage with Honey and Garlic, which was delicious fried chicken coated in honey and with big flakes of toasted garlic. I could have eaten that all night!

When I go to a Chinese restaurant or have a takeway, I never opt for dessert as I’m usually too full up from my main course but at Chung Ying Central we were offered several different types of dessert which I was really excited to try. The first one was Steamed Caramel Buns which were really different to what I was expecting and looked a lot like a boiled egg once I broke it open, it was very tasty though and definitely something that I would choose if I were to visit again, it wasn’t too sweet and just had enough of a caramel flavour to satisfy my taste buds.

There was also a selection of brownies which I tried, I’m not a fan of brownies anyway but I thought I would try the salted caramel variety which was quite nice but very rich and I wouldn’t choose to have it again.

The final dessert was the weirdest but surprisingly, the most enjoyable. This was the one we had all been looking forward to trying since we were shown the menus at the beginning of the evening and it certainly didn’t disappoint – the Pan Fried Water Chestnut Paste. We weren’t sure what to expect before this was bought out, none of us were expecting it to be in a jelly form! We all tucked in and were surprised to find that it was crunchy on top with a jelly like texture, which chunks of water chestnut inside. It was very refreshing, not too sweet and not too sickly either. I would definitely recommend you try it if you are going to be visiting Chung Ying Central.