However, there are notable exceptions, including Leonards@theSeahorse, which is remarkable thanks to judicious sourcing and cooking by chef Simon Leonard.
Could the Great Wall Chinese restaurant prove another draw?
Follow me up the stairs to this first-floor semi-circular restaurant, right by the ferry. It is so close to the water that the lights of the Spinnaker Tower almost illuminate its interior.
Smiling Chinese staff certainly know how to welcome you here, although the manager was a tad brusque and undemonstrative. Despite having a half-empty restaurant, he finally granted me a small table in a corner out of harm's way, leaving his charming staff to demonstrate the famed Chinese hospitality.
The sparsely-decorated restaurant reminds me of some of the unchanging Chinese ones in London. There is no finery, and functionality reigns. Of course that's not a bad thing. Some of the best Chinese food I've eaten has been from Hong Kong street stalls or tiny upstairs restaurants in London's Chinatown where authenticity and good cooking and sourcing is the norm. Lily Kwok, the indefatigable Manchester restaurateur who introduced the flavours of China to postwar Britain by opening one of the first Chinese restaurants in the country, and who died in December, had these attributes in mind.
I have no idea of the background of staff at the Great Wall but the menu states that it offers the best authentic Chinese food from the heart of China. Starters include the usual crispy seaweed (which is rarely seaweed but actually shredded bok choi, spring greens or cabbage), barbecued spare ribs; prawn crackers; crab and sweetcorn soup.
A huge number of poultry, beef, pork, steak, seafood and sweet and sour dishes follows. Chow mein dishes have a number of outings as does foo yung – egg-inspired food mixed with chicken, mushroom, crab or prawns.
The restaurant also has set menus for two, three or four, which see a plethora of steaming dishes making their way to your green tableclothed table. The 'Eat as much as you like' menu asks customers to eat all before more orders can be taken and only order what you can eat. Food must also be eaten within two hours.
I spotted what might have been an authentic dish, deep-fried hot and spicy squid with chillies, so ordered this. Sorry to say, it did not taste authentic – in fact, it was tasteless. Not even a small container of chilli sauce brought by one of the more charming staff members could breathe life into it.
Sizzling fillet steak with ginger and spring onion was my next dish. The velveting – dipping the rather coarse slices of beef into a cornflour and water mix – added a touch of The Real Thing to the flavours, but the kitchen was shy on producing much ginger and spring onion. It came with plenty of undercooked onion slices. A dull fried rice didn't raise the pulse, and nor did a glass of white wine.
I fear this restaurant may be going through the motions and its beating, living Chinese heart was not on show when this diner showed up for 'the best, authentic Chinese food'.
A goodbye was not forthcoming when I departed, and I was left with an overall feeling of shoulder-shrugging indifference.
Great Wall Chinese Restaurant 1st floor, 78 High Street, Gosport. (023) 9250 3388.
Open: Tue-Sun 6pm-11pm. Closed Mon.
Food: ***
Service: ***
Atmosphere: **
Disabled access: Stairs up to the restaurant.
How to get there: Follow the signs for Gosport and the centre, and the restaurant is on the right at the top of the pedestrian precinct (High Street) by the ferry. Car parks nearby. Bus: 34.