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Restaurant review: A trip to Yan Oriental Restaurant in Westhill is filled with nostalgia and familiarity

A selection of the dishes. Featured from left top to to top right are a quarter crispy aromatic duck, salt and pepper prawns, honey chilli chicken, beef panang. Pictures by Chris Sumner.
A selection of the dishes. Featured from left top to to top right are a quarter crispy aromatic duck, salt and pepper prawns, honey chilli chicken, beef panang. Pictures by Chris Sumner.

“Egg fried rice and curry sauce please.” The all too familiar order of my friends when visiting Yan Oriental Restaurant in Westhill more than a decade ago while on our lunch break.

Having grown up in the Aberdeenshire suburb a trip to Yans – as we used to call it back in the day – was a weekly occurrence for my friends and I.

We’d venture to Marks and Spencer (M&S) at the Westhill Shopping Centre to get a roll for me, the baker around the corner for some of the crew and if the others were feeling particularly peckish it would be a jolly to the Med (the Mediterranean kebab shop that was once across from M&S) or Yan across the road on Ashdale Drive.

For £2.50 or so my friends would order egg fried rice with curry sauce. A mere five minutes later we’d be walking, my mates heads down as they tucked into their beige delight.

Outside Yan Oriental Restaurant in Westhill on Ashdale Drive. Pictures by Chris Sumner.

Yan Oriental Restaurant

I’d organised to meet two of my friends who were partial to a trip to the restaurant as school for a bite to eat at the old haunt and booked us in for 7pm on a Tuesday. I didn’t expect it to be busy, but to my surprise it was. Table after table, diners were in enjoying a range of Chinese and Thai dishes.

I was running a few minutes late and made a beeline for the table my dates for the night were seated at.

We browsed the menu with Sam determined that chicken chow mein was to be ordered. “I’ve been craving it all day Julia…” she said in a voice that told me she knew I would be disappointed with her unenthusiastic choice. But who was I to dictate what she ordered?

I suggested we ordered a few starters after Sam picked vegetable spring rolls (£5.95). Salt and pepper prawns (£6.45) and a quarter crispy aromatic duck (£9.50) were the other two to make the cut.

Having dined at the restaurant many times Julia says the interior has hardly changed. Pictures by Chris Sumner.

We didn’t have one server throughout, which I sometimes thinks breaks the slow of service a bit. One younger individual took our drinks order someone else took our food order. I think the whole team ended up serving us at different times throughout our meal and I was a little disappointed at the lack of interaction we had from any of them.

Even asking for an additional few minutes to review the menu resulted in one member of the team standing beside our table staring at us until I caved under pressure.

Ordering was quick and any questions I did have didn’t seem to come with answers as the server walked away as I was speaking.

Turning back to our conversation around the table I noticed how the place hadn’t changed from last time I’d visited. The same white table cloths, branded Yan carpet and the same ornaments and foliage remained. Almost as if time had stood still.

Just before the food arrived someone returned to our table to light the the tea light candles in our food warmer.

The food

The spring rolls were packed with all sorts of veggies and were crisp to bite into. There was three of them luckily which meant we didn’t have to fight over who got what. They were quite chunky and came with a dipping sauce that was both sweet and sour.

Salt and pepper seems to be all the rave just now, so I had high expectations for the prawns. They were a decent size and there was five of them. They had a kick from the seasoning, which they had been tossed in, and were place on top of a bed of lettuce and fried chopped red chillies, spring onion and sliced onion. I loved the slight heat of it.

Salt and pepper prawns were one of the starters Julia and her friends tried. Pictures by Chris Sumner.

My friends however were more interested in the crispy duck which came with ramekins of thinly sliced raw spring onion and cucumber matchsticks.

There was plenty duck for us all and two pancakes each which meant everyone was happy as it turned out to be our favourite starter.

Crispy aromatic duck came served with cucumber and spring onion, plus hoisin sauce and pancakes. Pictures by Chris Sumner.

A rich, sweet and utterly delicious hoisin sauce was also served and I lathered it onto the paper thin pancakes that we stacked the duck and veggies onto.

We polished everything off – even the salad with the prawns – and our table was swiftly cleared to make way for our mains.

My other friend Amy had picked safely with honey chilli chicken (£9.45) as had I with beef penang (£9.70). I usually order sweet and sour, satay or Szechuan which have always been great, but I opted for one of the Thai dishes instead.

Sam’s chow mein didn’t look overly exciting with it just being thin fried noodles, small bits of chicken and some fried onion throughout. The curry sauce (£2.50) she’d ordered on the side was where things started to look up as it was packed with flavour and there was plenty of it.

The honey chilli chicken was a safe bet and boasted a generous portion. Pictures by Chris Sumner.

Amy and I’s dishes were good, but she felt hers was lacking in sauce given the mound of lightly battered chicken, baby corn, carrots and bamboo shoots. The chicken was juicy and there was big chunks of it which made for a big feed.

My red curry and coconut milk-based beef dish came with lemon grass and coriander. It too wasn’t as saucy as I’d had liked and the beef was a bit overcooked as it was chewy. The flavour was certainly there and the al dente onion and green pepper added a crunch to it.

Amy and I shared a portion of egg fried rice (£4) which was fluffy and there was plenty of it for the two of us, and more. Had we had more sauce to pour over it, I think we’d have polished the lot, but there was plenty egg through it and some peas, too.

Service during out time there was a little impersonal which was a first for us. I couldn’t help but feel by the end we were forgotten about as we had to ask for the bill multiple times, even though we were one of three tables left at around 9pm who were also experiencing the same struggle.

The verdict

Yan Oriental Restaurant will always hold a special place in my heart for the memories it has given me over the years. It is a place of familiarity and nostalgia for my friends, my family and I, and I am happy to see they are still as popular as ever.

The menu is extensive so Yan is not only a good place for the classics, but there’s also a few more adventurous dishes on there for those who like to try something new. Although, sometimes nothing hits quite like a classic, and, I’m happy to report that the curry sauce tastes just as good as it did over a decade ago.

A selection of the dishes. Featured from left top to to top right are a quarter crispy aromatic duck, salt and pepper prawns, honey chilli chicken, beef panang. Pictures by Chris Sumner.

Information

Address: Yan Oriental, 4B, 4 Ashdale Drive, Westhill, Aberdeenshire AB32 6LP

T:01224 746746

W: www.yanrestaurant.com

Price: £70.05 for three starters, three mains, a side, a sauce and five Diet Cokes.

Scores

  • Food: 3/5
  • Service: 3/5
  • Surroundings: 3/5

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