Rice noodles with chicken curry sauce costs £5.80 at the Empress of Sichuan which is quite a deal considering that's just £1 more than the vaguely similar noodle offerings from Pod or Eat and you get to sit on soft leather chairs in an attractive dining room with table service just 10% extra and Elvis for a soundtrack.

The excellent lamb skewers at £1.50 each are even more of a bargain and it was quite a surprise to find that the restaurant was near empty during lunch despite all the hype over the transition from Taiwanese Keelung into the Sichuanese Empress.

The Empress doesn't have the most inviting exterior and Lisle Street is a little off the lunch time radar for most, but the specials menu is filled with meals for under £6 all presumably cooked by master chef Kang Dong (who was seen popping out for a break) and so it really should be busier.

Golden Day on Shaftesbury Avenue is the new place for Hunanese cuisine. It's more modern than the Empress of Sichuan, has less leather on the seats, offers a scary looking menu with no obvious cheap deals and had a lot more customers.
The food also looks quite threatening on the plate and while it was ok, the Hunan style of dry hotness is best left to those with a taste for it.

Empress of Sichuan, 6 Lisle Street, WC2H
Golden Day, 118-120 Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D