When it comes to ordering food for a group in a Chinese restaurant, benevolent dictatorship is always best. A good meal is a harmony of contrasting elements, with an exciting variety of ingredients, tastes and textures.

If each person simply orders the dish they fancy, the end result will be lopsided and chaotic: several chicken dishes, perhaps, or too many deep-fried ones, or more than one in a sweet-and-sour sauce. Individually, they might be delicious but collectively they are likely to overwhelm or dull the palate.

A fine Chinese meal is like a musical composition, with its peaks and lulls, its light and shade, its gentle melodies and rousing rhythms. Perfectly balanced, alternately stimulating and soothing, never cloying, it should be a sensory journey that pleases the palate and the mind.