Although not strictly a restaurant as such, I felt I had to comment on this great little Chinese take-away in my hometown of Alnwick. The Sun Ho Chop Suey House lives on the main street of Alnwick, in a prime position to attract everyone and anyone who happens to be in Alnwick.

While I am still at school being in the sixth form allows me to go in to town at lunchtime, and take it from me; the school food is so bad that for the three years your in the lower school you long to go 'down the street' for dinner!

Now you may think that a Chinese isn't something that a school kid could afford every day of the week, but fear not, for this great little take away has lunch time special meals.

For £3 you can a variety of curries, chop suey and chow mein meals, all served with either rice of chips. You get a great size helping, more than enough to fill you up, but even better they all taste great! Even still £3 is a little much to spend every mealtime at school, so the most popular meal is the £2.20 special. This little beauty comes in a long (big) foil tray, one half full of chips and the other half egg fried rice. On top of this you have the choice of mushrooms or onions, and either curry sauce, sweet and sour sauce or gravy. This may not sound too brilliant in theory, certainly the lack of meat is worrying to start with, but when you taste it for the first time you realise that in this (admittedly rather strange combination) the Sun Ho Chop Suey House have created a delicacy. I always go for the onions and curry sauce, and I can confidently say that it is one of the best things I have ever tasted. Infact as I sit now my mouth waters in anticipation of eating one tomorrow lunch time! The mix of chips, egg fried rice and curry sauce set my taste buds tingling every time. Every Chinese should have this on the menu!

Of course, you don't always want a Chinese at lunch time, infact I would say that most of the lunchtime trade
comes from the school, so how does the shop fair for other meals?

Well in keeping with most Chinese establishments, the menu is massive! With over 160 different meals you are spoilt for choice, and there are set meals for 2,3,4 and 5 people. These are good in two ways, first you save a fortune on buying them singly and secondly you get to try a variety of the foods.

There are the usual Chinese foods on the menu, such as sweet and sours, chop suey, egg foo young and chow mein dishes. Each are available with a variety of meats, including the usual pork, beef, chicken, aswell as king prawns and for vegetarians some dishes come with mixed vegetables or mushrooms in place of a meat.

Price wise the Chinese is neither expensive nor cheap, just about every dish on the menu costs between £4 and £5, and all are served with rice or chips, although fried rice costs 20p extra. For those of you who are deprived in the way of the taste buds (my way of saying, if you don’t like Chinese food) there is a selection of English meals available, including steak, mixed grill and omelettes, all served with chips.

The staff are friendly, infact the owner frequents the same snooker club as I do, and has happily beaten me on numerous occasions, although I did decline his offer of placing a not so small wager on the outcome!

There is one disappointing aspect to the shop; it’s closed Tuesday lunchtimes, leaving me with Gregg’s on that day!

The open times are as follows

Monday to Thursday

11.30am - 1.30pm (except Tuesdays)
6.00pm - 10.30pm

Friday and Saturday

11.30am - 2.00pm
5.00pm - 10.30pm

Sunday

6.00pm - 10.30pm

Oh and it would be nice if it were open a bit later at weekends, to allow a greater variety for those after pub crawl snacks!!

Overall, my favourite Chinese in the world, worth a visit to Alnwick just for their £2.20 special!!