A glamorous-sounding digital invite landed in our inbox the other day, promising an evening filled with ‘bold flavours, handcrafted cocktails, and elevated hospitality’. I was suitably intrigued.

The grand occasion? A launch party for the second UK outpost of American casual dining chain, P F Chang’s, out here in East London (the first being in Leicester Square).

With over 300 such joints dotted all over the US and the wider world, bringing such a well-established formula to the glitzy heights of, er, the top floor of Westfield, certainly needed some opening night pizzazz to ensure it made an impact in the city’s cutthroat dining scene.

And sure enough, after a barrage of excited follow-up reminder emails spread over a fortnight, upon arrival, the stops had indeed all been pulled out.

As we entered an already-thronging throng, trays of luridly-hued sweet cocktails swung past, inviting the invited to grab one, and then another. And so we did.

The chain is notable for being Halal-friendly, which roughly translates as no pork on the menu, but do check your drink. We duly had to make sure there was cock and not mock in our tails, each time.

As you’d expect, under the circumstances, all manner of frenzied influencer activities were also well underway, from pouting in front of Insta-friendly ‘blossoms’ to dutifully documenting a Chinese Dragon dance performance from a sea of other phones held aloft.

Watching some of this content the next day - all of which follows the rigid formula of near-identical set-piece shots and frequent use of meaningless words like ‘amazing’, ‘delicious’ and ‘cool’ - I wondered if anyone was really that bothered about the actual dining experience?

The food was usually playing second fiddle to footage of the Dragons, phone charger engraving and personalised fan calligraphy table - as long as various sticky sauces look suitably poppin’ for their 0.5 second close-ups, the video ‘review’ is obviously considered done.

In the interest of providing a balance, I kept my phone firmly in my pocket and tucked in to whatever swept past on the next well-laden platter, for all intents and purposes blind.

P F Chang’s menu offers a geographically wide mélange of reasonably priced signature dishes, where California sushi rolls sit alongside rich Mongolian beef, and deep fried spring rolls that reminded my friend of the Chinese takeaway of his youth spent in a Welsh village.

Despite the pan-Asian fusion schtick, the food leans a lot more towards America than it does the hawker stalls of Hong Kong. This is epitomised by the chain’s famous Dynamite Shrimp, where the plump, battered specimens come doused in a bright orange sriracha honey mayo, which has its origins back at the original Chang’s in Scottsdale, Arizona.

There was no opportunity to try any rice or noodles as the party rolled on, as further platters of sweet chilli chicken and rather crumbly crab wontons streamed out of the prodigious open kitchen.

After a busy day shopping in the mall downstairs, falling into a booth here to fill up on any of these US-style plates would be absolutely fine. Drawing in diners focused on the food alone is going to be harder without the dragons, drinks and digital natives elevating the hype levels.