Sampans

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Situated amidst the business-like functionality of the Holiday Inn, Sampans makes a fair stab at transcending its bland surrounds. The smart restaurant area, set apart from the rest of the hotel, is full of tasteful Oriental touches such as wall-hangings, and the friendly staff are all kitted out in Chinese finery. Adding to the convivial ambience are the views, with the glass frontage offering a pleasing vista of the distant Pentland Hills. The menu is equally panoramic and runs the gamut of Far Eastern cuisine, with Thai, Malaysian and Singaporean dishes offering a counterpoint to the Chinese mainstays. A starter of pork-filled Peking dumplings is perfectly serviceable, lightly spiced and pliant, though its accompanying lettuce leaves are somewhat drowned in sweet chilli sauce. The otherwise textbook-crispy prawn won ton suffers the same sickly fate. Mains are better, if a little lacking in real oomph on the part of the kitchen. Beef with ginger and spring onion is tender, but timid on the flavour front, while the Szechuan king prawns are missing the peppercorn-fuelled fiery zing prerequisite of dishes from that province.

• High point: Friendly, attentive staff
• Low point: A few too many bland offerings at grand prices