Cool Jade, Edinburgh

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism is said to be responsible for this famous quotation. If you choose, as I did, to walk west from Roseburn, this might resonate. But if you don't know exactly where you're going, you might be more inclined to ask, where on earth is Downie Terrace?

It's a straight line, and you have an inkling that that line will include Glasgow Road, St John's Road and Corstorphine Road. Quite why the stretch as you enter Corstorphine is named Downie Terrace is a mystery. So just bear in mind that your quest lies opposite the zoo, where the Chu family have been plying their trade, quietly and rather well, since 2016. Out for a regular Tom Eats! dinner with my favourite influencers, @veggieburgh and @margieatsedinburgh, I discover it has been on all of our To Do lists for some time.

V asks me about reviews of Chinese eating places. I recall a place in Singapore - but that's from about 20 years ago. Another couple in Manchester - but that was when the youngest was at uni there. Looking at the site, I'm horrified to see I've written up only one other Chinese place - and that was in The Wirral. I'm not sure why, as I love good Chinese food. Perhaps the unsurpassable memories from Manchester's Chinatown spoiled me. I don't know. Anyway I'm here now, but short of recent comparators, and certainly short on Chinese vegetarian experiences.

Our table is an early one, 6.15. Even then on a Wednesday it's pretty busy. By 7, it's full. Service in a Chinese restaurant can often have an impersonal quality to it. Not here, where you are greeted with smiles and genuine warmth from all involved. An attractive, deceptively large dining room, it just feels good.

The website states that Cool Jade provides a range of authentic and British Classics. After appetisers, small plates and soup, the menu is headed House Favourites and Classics. On the takeaway menu, the latter carries the subheading, The Usual Suspects. There is also a Banquet Menu, which looks pretty good value. Unlike the normal banquet option, the diner is afforded a good range of choice, not just herded towards the churn-em-out bog standards.

V can eat prawns so we went for three veggie mains and the Szechuan King Prawn. If any of you out there can resist a ginger and spring onion stir fry you are a stronger soul than I. There was pickled ginger, adding to the zing. You could have had nine variations of this. The veggie option had a bit of tofu, proving that it can be edible in a sauce as good as this.

Two other dishes were new to me, Lar Chee and Chui Chui [like the train] (the parenthesis is theirs, not mine). The latter was soy based with courgettes and spring onions. Like the ginger and spring onion dish it came, sizzling alarmingly, on a cast iron plate. No doubt that both had been cooked to order. The Lar Chee had a yellow bean and sweet chilli sauce with bamboo shoots and other veg. There was a satisfying kick of chilli, making it, for me, much the better of the two.

I was looking forward to a real hit from the Szechuan King Prawn. With Szechuan dishes done well, you get a balance between flavour and lip tingling heat. The latter was missing. Very tasty, but this was Szechuan lite for a douce Edinburgh audience.

The main dishes are great value: the sides rather less so. You don't get a huge amount of egg fried rice for £4.20, unlike some places where one rice will serve a whole table. Taking the sounds like a train dish out of the equation - that had the dull hum of electricity as opposed to the drama of steam - I would score this quite highly. I'd love to go back and sample the carnivorous offerings to which I'm more accustomed.

One thing of which I'm certain. In future I won't be neglecting the flavours of China as woefully as I have in the recent past. Thank you, Chu family, for reigniting that part of my palate.

Tom Eats! will return in October