I CAN honestly say I don’t think I’d ever been to a Chinese restaurant that doubles as a nightclub before I visited the Oriental Aroma.

We climbed the stairs from the High Street entrance and arrived in the lobby, seeing picture frames filled with snaps of people having a good time. As we moved into the restaurant itself we realised it actually doubled as the dancefloor. The walls were painted black and a bar took up most of one of them.

Later one of the staff explained some of the tables and chairs arranged across the room were moved away to make space for people to dance.

We were greeted and seated at our table quickly. At first I was slightly concerned the subdued lighting might make it difficult to take a good look at what I was eating. But as it turned out the white ceiling lights gave enough illumination.

It was quiet, but there were a couple of other occupied tables and later on a large hen party arrived.

Asked whether we wanted to dine a la carte or from the all you can eat menu, my other half suggested we take up the challenge. We’d both been working since morning and a lunchtime snack was all that had kept us going.

The waitress explained we could have a starter, a second course and a main and that we could order more if we wanted.

We chose the chef’s special sharing dish as the starter. We didn’t know what was in it and that was part of the attraction.

As we waited we heard the group on the neighbouring table, who were obviously enjoying their meal, order some more food and we wondered how large the portions were.

A huge platter arrived a short while later, piled with a variety of foods, from tiny spring rolls and pork ribs to chicken skewers in a satay sauce.

I’m not entirely sure what some of it was, but the range of tastes it offered was huge. The sweetness of the ribs, the nuttiness of the satay and the freshness of the spring rolls all had their space on the plate.

The edge of our hunger well and truly blunted after polishing most of it off, we turned our attention to the second course, a mix of aromatic duck and pork with pancakes and plum sauce.

Both meats were moist and flavoursome, bringing back happy memories of the last time we’d gone out for a Chinese meal years ago in Bristol – we don’t tend to go out and treat ourselves that much.

By the time the last pancake had been rolled we were starting to think we might have over faced ourselves, but we were determined to see it through.

Service was so quick we only had a few minutes to wait before our table was cleared and our main courses arrived.

We’d both gone for chicken – I’d chosen Vietnamese and he’d picked lemon.

Somewhat over optimistically we’d also asked for a side order of noodles.

There were a lot of water chestnuts in my dish with a handful of chicken chunks, but it was plenty for me. The sauce was fruity, sweet and spicy and one of the highlights of the meal for me. My partner’s lemon chicken – a decent-sized battered fillet in a sweet sauce was equally satisfying.

When a waitress came over and asked if we wanted to order more we had to confess we were stuffed.

When she brought the bill she happily answered my other half’s questions about how the restaurant worked as a nightclub, explaining the chairs and tables on the dancefloor were stacked away in a discreet space just behind our table and rather than having a DJ booth the music came from a modern system behind the bar.

Our bill was a very reasonable £57 including three pints of Carling and two of Coke.

The restaurant, which opened in 2006, serves Thai and Vietnamese as well as Chinese and recently introduced an extensive vegan menu. It also operates as a takeaway.

Around the time of Chinese New Year staff organise school visits to give primary children in the town a chance to learn about the food and culture and raise money for a local good cause at the same time.