In Chinese culture, eight is considered a lucky number because it sounds similar to an array of words including fortune, wealth and prosperity. So is Pan-Asian Chelsea restaurant Eight Over Eight as prosperous as its name suggests, or is it all just superstition?

The Venue
Eight Over Eight is a nice looking venue, with decor that’s sleek and modern. The small bar area is near the entrance, packed in with trendy Londoners having an after work drink or two; the bar is separated from the restaurant by iron railings wrapped into flower shapes. In the restaurant area they’ve kept things simple with pale wood walls and a stripe of mirror, whilst on the tables are white paper tablecloths and white ceramic holders for cutlery and chopsticks. Aside from the lights, which look like upside down umbrellas made out of pale yellow paper, the restaurant is quite content to let the food do all the talking.

The Atmosphere
Taking its Kings Road location into consideration, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Eight Over Eight has a clientele filled with Chelseaites trying to impress each other whilst preening in the complimentary lighting. Whilst no London restaurant can really escape from a table or so of those types – and the lighting is quite nice, actually – the rest of the guests are surprisingly varied: groups of friends, ladies-who-lunch out to dinner, older couples with grown children and even a well-behaved teenager or two.

On weekends expect this place to fill up by 8pm at the latest, with diners hoping to snag a table making do with the heaving bar instead. Service is friendly and helpful, although for some reason staff seem to put down the mains and sides in no particular order on the table, so that you might have to do some rearranging if you don’t want someone else’s plate of food sitting in front of you.

The Food
Eight Over Eight serves a variety of Asian foods, from Japanese to Chinese to Thai. The menu is not specifically set up for the typical three courses, so you could order a host of dim sum and leave happy. Prices range from about £6 for dim sum to £21 for the infamous black cod and miso. If the choices are a bit too overwhelming, there are several set menu options at £35, £45 and £59 that include a large sampling of the menu.

The prawn tempura, served with a creamy, light green jalapeno dipping sauce, is crisp and light, with a good sized pile of prawns. From the sushi options, the dynamite spider roll is laid out spectacularly, with trim slices of sushi topped with dollops of wasabi mayonnaise in the middle, flanked with two pieces at the end that are stuffed to bursting with tempura spider crab legs and stalks of chives. The roll is well balanced, with creamy avocado against the crunchy spider crab, but the nori (dried seaweed) wrapped around the outside is a bit too tough and makes chewing the roll difficult.

The duck is a large portion, with a breast and a leg covered in a sweet plum sauce. The duck has a nice crisp skin with almost no fat, and the meat is cooked all the way through without being too well done. It's served with paper-thin pancakes and a salad of cucumber, tomato and plum, which you can pile into the pancake with the duck to make into a kind of mini burrito. Black cod with miso is a typical favourite in Japanese restaurants, and this version doesn’t disappoint with a large, meaty slice of the fish and pale yellow miso in a tiny jug. The dish is traditionally quite sweet, so if it becomes a bit too much there’s a wedge of lime on the plate that you can squeeze over the fish to balance the sweetness with sharpness. Sides include chilli rice, packed with long strings of scrambled egg and big slices of vegetables, and thin green beans, covered in a savoury xo sauce, which includes crispy bits of chicken, pork and prawns mixed together.

Desserts include mochi, a Japanese dessert that’s made with rice flour. Eight Over Eight’s version is made with cookies and cream ice cream, which is served in sushi-like slices and wrapped with chocolatey, almost doughy ribbons of mochi. Instead of soy sauce, the dessert is served with a bitter chocolate sauce that you can dip the ice cream into with chopsticks. The trio of ice cream and sorbet is a good choice for a lighter end to the meal, with perfectly round scoops of sweet mango, subtle melon and creamy, bitter green tea, each topped with a thin curl of a crisp biscuit.

The Drink
There’s a decent cocktail list, of which the Shiso Mojito (£7.50) looks to be the most popular. Martinis run at about £7, whilst Champagne cocktails put you back £10. The wine list has a nice range of choices, starting from £16 for the house red and white and going well into the hundreds. The 2005 Hugel Pinot Blanc is a good choice from the list of whites, with a refreshing and slightly peachy flavour.

The Last Word
Eight Over Eight is clearly a popular destination for local and not-so-local Londoners. Even considering the precaution of naming the restaurant to encourage prosperity, they crowds show that they’re doing something right - it’s not just luck.

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