MARTIN LACY visits another new Chinese restaurant - and finds another star

To find one new restaurant serving good food in a relaxed setting is a bonus when doing this job: to find two - almost within a stone's throw of each other -in the space of a month is something of a minor miracle.

While singing the praises of the Lee Garden restaurant in Blossom Street, York, in these columns last month, I mentioned another Chinese restaurant had just opened. This week I can report that the Northern Star in Bishopthorpe Road, York, has made an equally good impression on this eating out writer.

The Northern Star venue is probably well known to many Chinese food fans - it was originally Yung's. Now the vastly-experienced David Wong has decided to take retirement and his cosy little restaurant has a new name and a new owner, although not too much else has changed.

You will notice, apart from a change of faces, a different menu. Oh, all the old favourites are there but the Northern Star offers a change to the standard Cantonese fare with little twists and surprises that bring a new dimension to Chinese food.

There's the usually extensive menu - at reasonable prices - but is often the case, the real value is to be had with the set meals. We were going to avoid our normal practise of going for the set meal, but as Northern Star set meals allow you to choose from more than half a dozen dishes from the main menu, we went with the £15 a head special dinner.

It was an inspired choice. We started with the now traditional mixed starter platter. To be honest, I love this array of won tun, spring rolls, seaweed, prawn toast and spare ribs and I have yet to sample a bad one, yet this offering was a little bit special, not least because of the spare ribs - done salt and pepper style without sauce but served with tangy spring onions. Tender meat and a dry and spicy flavour made for great eating.

We also received a second starter dish - skewered chicken in satay sauce. The chicken was deliciously tender and the spicy sauce mouth-warming and mouth-watering.

For our main courses Carol went for chunks of monkfish with cashew nuts and I tried a new dish, deep fried crunchy beef with chilli and wine sauce, Szechwan-style. The monkfish came in large, tender melt-in-the-mouth chunks in a tangy sauce, but the beef was something else. Thin, long strips of meat had been deep fried to the perfection of crispness, coated in sesame seeds and served on a bed of red onions and a sauce that simultaneously set the mouth on fire yet didn't hide the taste of the beef. I've had a few hotter meals but I doubt I had a hotter, tastier meal. Not for the fainthearted but quite delicious.

The set price includes sweet (a much-welcome ice cream) and tea or coffee (we enjoyed a nice refreshing pot of China tea). The only extras were our drinks and a couple of pints and two halves of lager bumped our bill up to a couple of pence over £36, which compares favourably with other local Chinese restaurants and represents excellent value for a fine meal.

The Northern Star and The Lee Gardens may both be Cantonese restaurants in the same locale but I don't see them as rivals. Rather their individual style and approach complements each other. Certainly local foodies, already spoilt for choice in the area, now have two fine new restaurants to try, each with individual attractions and appeal.

And do try that deep fried beef at the Northern Star. It really is something special.

Restaurant:The Northern Star Cantonese Restaurant

Address:21 Bishopthorpe Road,York

Telephone:01904 628886

Reviewed:21/9/98

PICTURE:The Northern Star Cantonese restaurant

Food:

tasty and refreshingly different

Service:

friendly and attentive

Ambience:

cosy

Value:

very good