Castle Hill Chinese Takeaway, Belfast

I relish Chinese cuisine. I've tried a lot of takeaways in my neighbourhood and we keep going back to the Castle Hill which is on Upper Newtownards Road, close to the North Road junction. Sam, the head honcho, usually answers the phone to take the order; he advises me if they're busy and it'll take thirty or forty minutes. Last night it took under fifteen minutes.

I'm not really adventurous, so most of the meals we order have been tried and tested before. We ordered one prawn cocktail and one king prawn kung po with fried rice (number 24).

The prawn cocktail is very good if you like the taste of the seventies British classic. There's a lot of lettuce; however, overall it's generous enough and tasty. The sauce is good. It cost three pounds.

The prawn kung po was very good indeed: the sauce a good consistency and not too fiery; a fair amount of vegetables with pineapple. The prawns were juicy and quite large and coated with a light batter. That set me back six pounds twenty.

I only recall one occasion when I had a standard sweet & sour meal with something in batter - and the batter was overdone. It's never recurred since then. I have to confess that I still like the classic sweet and sour chicken in batter now and again; it's probably the least healthy item on the menu, but I seem to crave batter!

Delivery is a pound and their phone number is 9047 1597.