Peng You China Kitchen and Bar

Peng You China Kitchen and Bar nails it with the Taiwanese chicken. Precision seasoned, it's deep fried without being greasy, the chicken cooked to an elusive state of perfect juiciness.

It's a blistering hot day on our visit but inside is cool and pleasantly moody, with lots of dark wood and a tiled floor.

Clusters of red lanterns hang from the ceiling and there are accents of sunny yellow from leather lounge chairs and carved screens.

There are also tables outside and a mezzanine floor with distressed brick walls painted with Mao-era poster art. The decor is a refreshing change from Brisbane's ubiquitous Chinese restaurants that are pretty much indistinguishable from one another interior-wise.

A soundtrack of 1940s jazz perfectly suits the slightly louche ambience and sultry afternoon. The only anomaly is an electronic ticker-tape sign over the bar that scrolls through ads for the restaurant and the menu, interspersed with some pretty lame Asian-themed jokes.

It's like a modern version of a TV in a restaurant and as much as I try to resist, I find myself continually distracted by it.

The "China" in Peng You ("Friends") China Kitchen and Bar is a bit of a misnomer. The menu cherry-picks not only from China and Taiwan but Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. Most dishes have been given a contemporary spit and polish. Some just slide over the Asian side of the European/Asian divide; others are surprisingly pedestrian – the local Chinese takeaway standards of fried rice or a pricey chow mein ($30), for example.

The menu is divided into starters, soups, house-special roasts and share dishes but if there are just two of you, the share dishes don't really work as they're main sized and priced accordingly. At an average of $31, you're not likely to order more than two. We gave it a good go though, kicking off with gyozas (nicely textured and seasoned pork interiors but the wrappers too thick and a little dried on the edges), the aforementioned chicken which came with crisp fried basil and lettuce cups to create a little parcel of deliciousness, as well as a duck curry and ma po tofu.

The former was pretty good, the duck meaty and tender in a lip-tingling, rich and sweet yellow sauce. The ma po tofu had just the right amount of chilli to pork and the tofu was pleasantly silky but the sauce lacked real depth.

Some of the dishes arrive together (as you'd expect with share plates) and we found ourselves having to re-arrange our water glasses, crockery and cutlery on the narrow table to accommodate them. Service is swift and polite – overseen on our visit by one of the owners Joyce Chiu, who also has Obsession Chinese at South Bank.

Beer is the natural choice for Asian food and there are a few choices, from Kirin and Little Creatures Pale Ale on tap to bottles of Tsingtao, Mountain Goat Organic Steam Ale and a "Peng You" lager made for them.

There's also a neat little cocktail list, with some refreshing-sounding drinks such as a lemongrass mojito or a lychee champagne cocktail.

But we finished off with a trio of sorbets from the clipped dessert list. A mistake in hindsight. The rose, lychee and lemon-lime sorbets tasted artificial and were hard and lumpy.

Peng You is a bit hit and miss but nothing a bit of tweaking won't fix. The share plates, for example, could be offered in smaller and larger sizes and a little more finessing of some of the dishes is in order.

And please, please ditch the tacky ticker tape and Benny Hill jokes.