Michael Chow’s sister Tsai Chin was in the oddest film I ever made, The Cool Mikado in 1962. She went on to greater things. Her brother Michael was a major Sixties figure, famous for Mr Chow, a restaurant in Knightsbridge much inhabited by the gliterati of the day, from Princess Margaret to Peter Sellers.

Michael Chow moved to Los Angeles and opened a successful Mr Chow restaurant there. The London one sank deeper and deeper into ghastly.

When I went in September 2002 the headline to this column was “Ciao, Mr Chow – you won’t be seeing me again”. I wrote of that visit, “This is the worst Chinese food I’ve eaten in 100 years.”

Readers with an IQ over 10 will realise I hadn’t been eating Chinese food for 100 years in 2002. So what? I heard recently that Mr Chow had considerably improved. Well, it could only go up.

When Sir Michael Caine asked Geraldine and me to his wedding anniversary dinner there not long ago, his wife Shakira assured me it was now very good. I believed them. They know more about food than me.

Mind you, so does a passing tourist from Mesopotamia. Does Mesopotamia still exist?

I duly turned up, the first of 10 guests, to be met with cold looks from all the staff who obviously had long memories and recalled my previous visit.

The restaurant manager asked, “Are you with Mr Michael Caine?” What’s the point of being knighted if restaurant managers don’t even know it happened?

“It’s not Mr Caine, it’s Sir Michael,” I responded somewhat icily. To reveal other bad points: they served Hildon water and had European piped music. I hate them both.

After that though, a miracle. Everything was fantastically good. I never saw him order, but Michael said he’d ordered for the whole group. “I didn’t hear that,” I observed.

“I’m very quick and crafty,” responded Michael.

The service was fast beyond belief, just as I like it. Suddenly there were braised prawns with walnuts, sea bass, “velvet chicken”, seaweed, chopped chicken with lettuce and squab, beans, mixed dumplings, rice-paper-wrapped prawns.

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