On Wednesday evening a dinner for the London Restaurant Festival steering committee was held at the wizard Chinese restaurant Phoenix Palace in Glentworth Street, a few yards north of Marylebone Road.

This popular place, a favourite of mine, has recently undergone a major refurbishment and the committee was shown into a new private dining room where I think Posh & Becks would have been perfectly happy.

The meal started with an update from Tim Etchells from Single Market Events quickly followed by the arrival of two suckling pigs with blinking red electric bulbs like round Christmas tree lights for eyes. The squares of lacquered crackling served with plum sauce and small soft house pancakes were fabulous.

Equally good and totally different in its fragrant subtlety was the double-cooked mixed seafood and winter melon consommé, served in a vegetable vessel beautifully decorated with carving to resemble Shang dynasty pottery.

Simon Davis, Katie Mann and Penny Watson revealed more about the progress of the many and various festival events, whilst dishes of baked lobster with noodles, steamed turbot with shredded pork and loganberry, fresh lotus root filled with minced pork, pak choi with crab meat sauce and more were fitted in around their announcements. This was “work” as pure pleasure.

Several of the dishes, including the lobster, feature on the Phoenix Palace Festival Menu which in the evening is charging only £25 per person for six dishes.