IT would be fair to say that the citizens of Farnworth have not been exactly spoiled when it comes to restaurants over the last few years.

Indeed, such has been the volume of takeaways opening at every turn that the eating of food while on the move was beginning to look like a quaint by-law.

At last, though, here is a place to buck the trend. The newly opened Chinese restaurant Golden Crown on Higher Market Street occupies a prime main street location, and there is a large, free car park across the road.

Inside, the dcor is fairly traditional, but with clean modernity flowing through, it certainly moves away from the rather cloying, heavy ambience of older Chinese restaurants, and the generous size of the interior means that it will be more than locals who eat here.

The menu, while staying within the expected parameters of Chinese food, is absolutely huge (there is an extensive seafood selection), and we were fortunate to be given plenty of time to choose. To start, we chose chicken and sweetcorn soup, crabmeat and sweetcorn soup and an appetiser combination.

Both soups were delightful, but it was the appetisers that came as a pleasant surprise. In my experience, appetisers have come to mean just that - the annoying suggestion of what you would get if you wanted real food. Spring rolls the size of infants' thumbs and ribs you could pick your teeth with.

Not here, though. Here was a sumptuous array of nibbles that looked genuinely appetising as opposed to just small. Seaweed, spring rolls, skewered chicken spare ribs and more.

For the main course, my partner had the deep fried shredded chicken in OK sauce, while I had the fried fillet steak with black pepper sauce. The chicken was, by all reports, tender, and the OK sauce had a syrupy texture and almost crystalline orange-red glow.

It is the structure of the sauces that gives Chinese food its distinctive beauty. That and a fantastic taste.

The steak was beautifully tender, and was placed, sizzling, in front of me. The black pepper sauce seemed a little weak at first, allowing the flavour of the meat to overpower it, but then "ah!" it rumbled into a steaming, tingling explosion of spice.This was not a weak sauce, it was instead a culinary masterstroke, delivering the rare treat of all the flavours of the dish to hit you one by one.

Both dishes came with plenty of rice and chunky vegetables that were satisfyingly crunchy.

Chinese restaurants are not generally renowned for their desserts (though when this amount of skill has gone into the main courses, who can blame them for taking it easy with the sweets?). That said, the lychees I ordered were not too sweet, and best of all, they had their stones removed. My partner decided on a plain-sounding chocolate sundae, and it sounded plain because it was. Nothing wrong with it, though.

We had two bottles of wine with the meal, and finished with tea (well I did, somebody was still celebrating their birthday). The bill came to just over £46 which for this evening was excellent value for money.

It's not just about the food, although that is important. The service counts, too. The waiting staff were courteous and efficient. When we needed more time, we got it, but when we were ready, so were they. The place was far from empty, but we lingered for a long time after the meal, and never did we feel pressured to vacate the table.

It is a bold move to open a new restaurant anywhere, but particularly where you only have to close a door for a bar to open in its place. In all honesty, the job is made a lot easier when the quality of the cuisine is as high as this.

Golden Crown Star Rating **** (4)

18-20 Higher Market Street, Farnworth

Tel: 01204 861166

Open Monday - Thursday 5.00pm - 11.00pm

Friday/Saturday 5.00pm - Midnight

Sunday 12.00 - 10.00pm