"The Restaurants Of Manchester team took a well-earned break for lunch on Tuesday afternoon and headed down to China Town (as Phil Lynott would say). We popped into Pan Asia and was instantly greeted by the friendly manageress who passed us on to a waitress, who in turn walked us to a table and, before we even sat down, took our drinks order before disappearing (not into thin air, obviously).

The restaurant itself is welcoming and bright, TV's on the wall broadcast news and music channels whilst the open kitchen allows you to watch the chefs creating their dishes from China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

However it was our tummy's we'd come to feed, not our eyes, and after waiting for around 5 minutes for the drinks, without an a la carte menu to read nor a waitress in sight to ask what the plan of attack was, we actually contemplated getting up and leaving at that point. Fortunately a family who'd come in around the same time, and were eyeing us up to see what our first move would be, eventually decided to just go for the buffet trays without instruction. Yep, it would appear there's only buffet and no a la carte menu during the day. By default, we decided to also head to the buffet trays too.

With hindsight, we're glad we hadn't left earlier as the choice of dishes was excellent, from Japanese Sushi and Hot & Sour Soup to Beef in Black Bean Sauce or Aromatic Crispy Duck. With the exception of the cold chips, each dish was well stocked and fresh. Without casting too much aspersions on most buffet restaurants, you could understand why the vast majority of diners at Pan Asia were wearing business suits rather than shell suits.

On returning to our table, our drinks were finally there to greet us - not bad value either (£2.85 for Chinese Beer), we sat down and tucked into the food, which, it has to be said, was rather tasty and a good sampler of what you can expect on the a la carte menu (served after 3pm). Apart from the poor service and lack of instruction, our only gripe was the size of the plates - not much bigger than a saucer - which results in having to burn off all the extra calories with repeated trips to the buffet trays. We were also surprised at the lack of a price list - as it turned out, the buffet was £6.95 (£7.95 at weekends), which is great value for money and even less than the cheapest dish on the a la carte menu (ranging from £7.50 for many standard Chinese dishes to £11.50 for Sizzling Japanese Style Salmon Fillet).

Without wanting to sound snobby, as far as buffet restaurants go, you can't do much better in China Town and we'll certainly be returning for the a la carte menu soon." - restaurants of manchester 5/3/08 (visited on a tuesday afternoon)