As a restaurant reviewer, I eat a lot of pie, but recently too much of it has been humble. This week was the third time I have invited someone out for lunch/dinner to find the restaurant in question firmly closed. The first two choices -- Baba on Cowley Road and the Beat Cafe on Little Clarendon Street -- are only open in the evenings and don't do lunch. No amount of peering through the window and rattling the door was going to change that.

But on Monday night, the venue was not only closed but closed down, the icing on said humble pie. Instead of the Gourmet Pizza Company, the 'noodlebar' (written in trendy lower capped letters), was taunting me with its bustling interior, as if to say, 'everyone else knows about this.'

Having eaten in the Gourmet Pizza Company, which was the main restaurant in Gloucester Green, last year, I can see why its owner might have jacked it all in, sold up and bought a one-way ticket to Naples -- the place was empty, the service appalling, inexcusably late and the food sent back. On inquiring, head office said it was "commercially unviable," that's putting it mildly.

Whether it was the competition from the two other pizzerias in Gloucester Green, Gino's and Cafe Piazza, or the new influx on George Street including Ask, Zizzi and the old haunts Bella Pasta, Pizza Hut and Caffe Uno, that provided too much competition, or the fact that it was certainly resting on its laurels, either way, the GPC has bitten the dust. In its place is one of a new breed of (long overdue) modernised Chinese restaurants, where monosodium glutamate, food colouring, thick sauces, stodgy ingredients and over pricing are a thing of the past.

And as we only had one hour to go before the curtains went up at The Oxford Playhouse, we decided to give it a go. It was certainly full, with a constant flow of customers coming and going.

Set up along the cosy communist lines of communal trestle tables where everyone rubs shoulders with each other, we were ushered to a seat at the end of a table, next to another couple.

It's quite nice for a change actually. None of those embarrassing pauses in conversation, accentuated by the enormous gaps between you and the next table 50 metres away.

There were also a lot of single people there. I don't mean 'single' as in Bridget Jones, but people on their way home, stopping in for a quick bite to eat, travellers on their way to and from the bus terminal, tourists taking a quick breather and pre-theatre diners. Window benches make eating alone even more inconspicuous.

The one thing people don't come here for is long, intimate dinners. It's about as private as Sven Goran Eriksson's love life. So if you do want to talk about your private lives, expect everyone else to hear. But back to the food. The menu is divided up into soup, fried noodles, rice dishes, side orders and extras. The noodle sections come with a selection of three kinds of noodles varying from thin to thick, and the most expensive dish is £4.20. You couldn't find more reasonable prices anywhere. Most Chinese restaurants charge at least £7 per main these days and that's without the noodles or rice, this price includes them! There are no starters, and the food comes when it's ready -- in bits and bobs. It's fast food at its best.

So we had the mixed vegetables in black bean sauce with boiled rice, fried mai fun noodles with mixed vegetables, seaweed, seared vegetable dumplings, and sweet chilli dip, with sparkling water. The dishes were fragrant, fresh, light and generous, the service quick and unobtrusive, the bill came to just £16.10 for two, and we were in and out in 40 minutes.

This is the way oriental restaurants used to be, when you could afford to go out and order several dishes each and then share them all, rather than only choose one because they were so price restrictive.

But a word of advice for the opposition -- eating humble pie and taking a leaf out of the noodlebar's book should prevent anymore permanent 'closed' signs being erected, and save me bashing on the door.

Noodlebar, Gloucester Green, Oxford. Tel. 01865 201400. KATHERINE MacALISTER