It can be easy to fall into a rut with our dining habits and to frequent the same restaurants serving the same cuisine. Cambridge is home to some unique, international-style restaurants, two of which I visited this week.

Charlie Chan, Regent Street

I’ve heard mixed reviews about this Chinese restaurant. On the one hand, it has a typical menu of somewhat westernised Chinese food. However, despite this, the restaurant is always packed with groups of local Chinese people, digging into a huge variety of dishes. So what’s the secret? Two words: Dim Sum!

Dim Sum is a style of Cantonese food, typically served in small pieces, with large quantities of steaming hot tea. I have tried Dim Sum on several occasions, and can safely say that Charlie Chan serves one of the best. If you fancy Chinese food with a difference, I’d highly recommend this restaurant and the following dishes in particular. First, steamed Char Siu Pork Buns (or Ho Wong Cha siu bao) – fluffy white buns filled with barbeque-flavoured pork. Next, try the Wafer Paper Wrapped Prawns (or Way fa zi bau ha) – this dish features succulent, whole prawns wrapped in thin rice paper and fried until crisp. Finally, round your meal off with Stuffed Pancakes with Red Bean (or Dau saa Zin Yun ben), which involves a red bean paste surrounded by a gelatinous rice flour case and sprinkled with sesame seeds – definitely an unusual taste sensation.

Polonia Club, Chesterton Road

If I had to describe Polonia Club in three words, they would be vodka, vodka, vodka. Proudly boasting a range of thirty-six different types of Polish vodka, ranging from £2 to £2.80 per 25ml, this is an excellent location for a lively Friday night dinner or a celebration with a large group of friends.

Polonia Club is slightly out of town on Chesterton Road, and it would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking out for it, but it really deserves more recognition. Stepping into what looks like an ordinary house is like stepping through the cupboard into Narnia – specifically a Narnia with less snow and more vodka.

On Friday and Saturday nights in particular, Polonia can be very noisy with a lively pub atmosphere. The food menu is made up almost entirely of authentic Polish dishes, such as beetroot soup, eight types of Pierogi, and five varieties of potato pancake. A three-course meal with an alcoholic drink will set you back around £15-18, but it is the electric atmosphere of this place that really makes it stand out. My particular recommendations are the Russian Pierogi and the Polish Martini (from what I can remember – it is a vodka bar after all).