Beijing Express provides a more cultured take on Chinese food.

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Beijing Express is located at 37 Highfield Street and offers up a variety of Asian cuisine seven days a week for lunch and supper. For info, call 855-2626.

Husky E's Verdict:

The sign outside the Beijing Express says it's "The best place to taste Asian food!", so expectations were very high, to say the least.

I didn't even know Beijing Express existed until Heavy T and I were driving down Highfield Street one day. Fortunately, it was lunch hour - and no surprise, we were hungry - so we stopped by for a meal.

As soon as we entered the small but quaint restaurant, we were seated by a pleasant waitress, who delivered us glasses of water before I even had time to take my jacket off.

Deciding on a meal wasn't as easy. The menu is extensive and can be tricky if you're not familiar with names of Asian food, like me. We asked our waitress for clarification a few times and she seemed more than willing to explain.

She highlighted a lunch menu and I took the boring, but safe approach: Traditional combo No. 7 (chicken fried rice, sweet and sour chicken balls and stir fry mixed vegetables, $9.99).

Combos on the lunch menu come with wonton soup, vegetarian spring roll and choice of drink. I also ordered an egg roll as an appetizer.

Our soup was delivered in no time and it was a great way to start the meal. Comparable to what you normally get at Chinese restaurants, but good. I should order soup more often.

My egg roll came next and I wasn't nearly as impressed. It was very heavy on cabbage and I've had much better.

Then, the main course. It was a big plate with a very good size portion of chicken fried rice (with pieces of chicken that actually tasted like chicken). This was very good.

So were the chicken balls, which came in a different type of sweet and sour sauce (a much lighter shade of red) than you normally receive. The stir fry mixed vegetables were also good, especially the broccoli.

I was excited to try my very first vegetarian spring roll because, well, I've been told it wouldn't hurt me to branch out and try more vegetarian food. It didn't go well though. I didn't like the batter, vegetables inside or the taste as a whole. That's a meat lover's opinion, anyway.

In the end, it was a solid meal that came cheap and came quickly. For the more adventurous eaters, there is probably a lot more to explore here.

I give Beijing Express a 7.5 out of 10.

Heavy T's Verdict:

Mmmm, chinese food. It's always been a favourite of mine and Beijing Express does it right.

I should disclose though, this isn't a straight up chicken balls and fried rice type of place. It is more Asian food than just Chinese and they offer up a variety of Japanese food too.

The decor is actually really nice and classy. I don't know how long the restaurant has been there, but it has a warm feel to it and you can tell the owners put a lot of time and effort into making a presentable restaurant.

There were plenty of options on the regular dinner menu, as well as the quicker lunch menu that Husky discussed.

For a starter I got an order of Jar Doo chicken wings (six pieces) for $5.99. I asked the waitress what the difference was between this type of wing and regular chicken wings and she said they were spicier. That excited me, but the spice (or lack thereof) of the chicken wings was kind of disappointing. The wings didn't have any sauce on them and they weren't all that spicy. They did have an interesting texture to them, but all in all nothing about them stood out. Wing lovers look elsewhere!

Hoping for a turnaround, I opted with the $9.99 Dim Sum lunch Combo 2, which had a four piece Shao Mai Dim Sum, with one each of fish, shrimp, pork and beef. The meal also included two piece pot stickers and chicken fried rice. Of course, it came with a wonton soup, vegetarian spring roll and beverage as well, which makes this a great deal for a lot of food.

The meal was all very good - the pot stickers were filling, the Shao provided some unique tastes and the fried rice was better than you would get from your more typical "fast food" Chinese places. There was a dipping sauce brought out for the Shao Mai (I think, it could have also been for the spring roll) and it was quite good. I ended up dipping most of the meal in this mouthwatering sauce.

The wait staff was very good and prompt with the food - almost polite to a fault. It could have been because it was a downtime, but it seemed every two minutes we had either the waitress or who I believe was the owner asking us if everything was okay, if we needed anything, etc. Being attentive to the customer is great, but sometimes a fatty just wants to eat in peace!

Overall though, I can't knock this place. It might be easy to miss in its non-Main Street location, but Beijing Express is a nice litte Asian restaurant worthy of trying out.

I give the place an 8 out of 10.

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