Wok around the docks

At first sight, the image on the huge stylised posters that line the staircase between the café and restaurant at Canary Wharf's new Yellow River Café could be mistaken for that of Chairman Mao. But it's a clever visual trick, because it is not the engineer of China's communist revolution at all - it's restaurateur and TV chef Ken Hom who is smiling down on diners.

The eaterie, which opened in December, is the flagship of a string of brasserie-style restaurants being rolled out across London and the South-east over the next year by the Oriental Restaurant Group, with Hom as consultant chef. The group has already opened sites in Chiswick and Twickenham, and an Islington opening is scheduled for April.

"The Oriental brasserie was an idea which we thought we could expand," says Hom. He devised the menu with the Oriental Group's executive chef Darren Wightman, who is also head chef of the company's acclaimed Pacific Oriental restaurant in London's Bishopsgate (Caterer, 18 November 1999, page 50).

In order to pull in the Docklands corporate market, the eaterie operates as two distinct outlets: a casual 120-seat café-bar downstairs, linked to a more formal 135-seat restaurant above, via a curving staircase.

The restaurant offers both an à la carte menu and two set menus, the latter being, says Hom, a formula that everyone associates with Chinese restaurants. The set menus, both offering seven dishes, clock in at £19.99 and £25.99 per person. The latter, which offers a greater choice of dishes, includes Sichuan crispy aromatic duck as a second course, preceded by either a hot or cold platter selection.

The cold platter comprises jellyfish, mustard duck, marbled tea eggs, chilli prawns, Sichuan mixed peppers and crispy pork, while the hot platter includes Peking prawns, prawn and pork dumplings, braised spicy aubergine, crispy duck spring roll, ginger fish and seaweed with caramelised walnuts. Both are also available on the à la carte as starters (£12.95 for two) - indeed, the hot platter is currently proving to be one of the restaurant's bestsellers.

There are 13 starters and a further 32 dishes split into second and main courses, family dishes and vegetable, rice and noodle dishes. Among the 10 desserts are three sorbets and three ice-creams (£3.20).

Desserts include a toasted coconut and dark rum dish, although mango pudding (£4.30) is the most popular at the moment.

On the main menu, old favourites such as Peking duck (£21.50 half/£36 whole) or the anglicised sweet and sour pork (£7.30) sit alongside Hom signature dishes such as Singapore curried rice noodles (£5.95) and the more sophisticated shallow-fried sea bass with Xo sauce (£18.95).

Suprisingly, perhaps, it is the signature dishes that are currently winning votes among diners. "Not so many people are ordering sweet and sour pork," says Hom, with satisfaction.

Given the corporate nature of Canary Wharf, it is natural that the 800 weekly covers the restaurant is turning over should be mostly pulled in at lunch (the split is 70:30 in favour of midday meals). Diners, served by a front of house team of 16 headed by restaurant manager Eddie Dusadeepan, are currently spending an average of £35 per head with wine.

The kitchen brigade of 12 is dominated by Asian chefs, many recruited from London's Chinatown. "It's important to get authentic Asian cooking, not to anglicise the food," says Hom. n

Yellow River Café, 10 Cabot Square, Canary Wharf, London E14. Tel: 020 7715 9528