f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

When I was younger I am sure you used to be able to get decent Chinese food in some restaurants.

These days I have gone right off it as nowhere seems to be any good any longer.

Tonight I went into Manchester to meet some clients and we had a meal in the Chinese quarter in Manchester.

Overpriced, pretty average and served in the usual Chinese restaurant style.... sullen humourless staff.

Every time I say never again and yet some how 12 months on I think 'it may be better this time'... but it never is!

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

There's a couple of decent ones in my town but they have been there a very long time, couple of restaurants that people have said to me are good were actually crap by comparison.

Unfortunately it's like most things these days, it's all about making money. With the advent of the Chinese Supermarket at lot of the stuff they sell is frozen crap, it's not like when we were lads and they made it all from scratch.

beefoss

iTrader: (2)

Proper Chinese food in Bristol by ikea which is also right above a Chinese supermarket. Maybe that's the key to finding quality Chinese food.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Alot of Chinese restaurants round here serve sickly sauced mushy slop. The buffet/all you can eat ones are the worst - help yourself type restaurants always remind me of school dinner, dishing up slop from containers of mushy Luke warm food that's been festering for hours (that includes many carverys BTW).

Luckily there is a nearby local Cantonese restaurant that is very very good and fairly priced. You pay twice as much at another restaurant and get worse.
It's nothing special, but it's fresh, well prepared, well cooked and well presented food that tastes good.

I guess its like pubs, curry houses and pizza places - 60% are crap, 35% are average and 5% are really good. And what I do find as well is the more posh/expensive places often aren't as good either.

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

My Mrs has spent a fair amount of time in China and it took here quite some time to be able to eat a small amount of the slop we call "Chinese" food over here.

Which having spent a reasonable amount of time in India myself and seeing some of the crap that gets served in Indian restaurants here I totally understand where she is coming from.

I prefer to eat Thai these days as they seem less corrupted by western tastes and greed, I also like spicy, hot ish food.

dpb

Still, how was the company F1 - was the Beautiful game on the menu.

Jay Cartay

iTrader: (3)

It will only get worse when UKIP get rid of all the Chinese people pal....

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Is that in their manifesto?

Saxo Boy

I stopped kidding myself that I'd get good chinese food over a year ago and I have a theory on why:

If you go to a good Indian or a Italian you nearly always find that the owner takes great pride in their restaurant and the food the serve. They invariably try to distance themselves from the competition with signature dishes and different ways of doing things.

However, Chinese restaurants are no longer like this - they are like a solved puzzle or matured market. The owners of Chinese establishments know that if you serve up the usual offerings like everyone else the British appetite for Chinese food is enough to make a healthy profit. With the right location for covers and takeaway, it's pretty much a license to print money without having to try hard. So they don't. I believe that nearly all Chinese restaurants have given up and accepted mediocrity because there is no incentive or need to rise above it.

Chinese food in the UK used to be really good. Now it's just sh*t and it's all the same. You order a 42. get a greasy plate of crap and pay your money. The only way it will change is if you vote with your feet which is why I always choose Indian, Italian, British food first these days.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

That is EXACTLY how I feel about it Prefer Indian (or Pakistani more correctly in my case) food anyway!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Had a lovely banquet in Liverpool's Chinese quarter, just before Christmas.

A few years ago, the wife's school did an exchange with some Chinese schools.

Thery took the Chinese staff to a very pricey (for Scunthorpe), Chinese restaurant for a banquet.

The Chinese people were bemused with most of the food, hardly recognising one dish in four.......

JTaylor

Thai food's rather pleasant.

CrisPDuk

We are lucky, we have an outstanding Chinese takeaway at the top of our road I agree though, before she opened I avoided all the others in the area because they all served the same greasy MSG laden stodge


Real Thai food is better than pleasant, it's some of the best food in the world

Tidgy

got a cracking chinese restraunt round the corner from my house

Turbohot

My stomach doesn't respond well to Chinese food, nor do my taste buds. But I continue to eat it to go with family choices.

I was in one Chinese over the weekend with my family. I felt very lousy with stomach upset that night back home, and that continued for another day. That's one Chinese where the Chinese staff have risen below their nature of remaining stern, a they do smile to you. The other one which I prefer is more expensive, gives me less stomach ache, but the staff is very robotic with no hospitality manners. I prefer eating in the second one, if I have to eat Chinese. We also get take away from this second one sometimes, because that way, we don't have to see their stern faces; as if to say to us- "Why the fvvk are you here, and don't bother coming back here".

Not sure what Chinese Quarters restaurants are like, as I can't remember eating in one. I have eaten on big Chinese restaurants, including the ones that kick you out after two hours of you being there. I'm not keen on any large restaurants tbh- may they be Italian, Mexican, Chinese or Indian or whatever. Largeness, to me, screams out greed of the restaurant owner; more that the service to cater for larger number thus better accessibility/availability. I prefer small to medium restaurants where you don't have to queue like an idiot. I don't even like Pizza Express (they do pizza to my standards, although not as good as proper Italians-run Italians) on busy nights, because I can't be @rsed with waiting to sit there. In the biggest and the most popular Indian around us, they also get too busy sometimes, but they have a palace-like large bus shelter inside, under which you could sit, eat your Bombay mix and have a drink while you're waiting and listening to some calming Sitar music on their stereo. They don't kick you out until you kick yourself out.

So, yes, back to the main thing, I occasionally will go to Chinese, even if they don't smile to me. I'm kind of desensitised to their dry behaviour now, after years of knowing that most Chinese restaurant staff are stern-faced; may it be a language thing or a cultural one. Food wise, yes, if it's an overpriced sh7t, I don't think I want to go back to that place. I don't think that it would have improved in next six months. What I do notice is that whenever I've gone after such restaurants' management has changed, it's either improved or gone downhill. So, I suggest you try it again when they're under different management. Until then, I wouldn't go back unless they put the banners up, saying that they have improved. There's no guarantee that they would have changed, but at least you've given them a chance.

Turbohot

Yes, I'll eat Thai any time.


Not keen on any noodle things from any cuisine apart from sivayi from Eid cooked as kheer, but my favourite is their green Thai fish curry with their rice. I love their wontons as well. They know how to use lemongrass, sesame seeds and coconut cream in combination very well in their cooking. Their pastry is always so elegantly delicate that it makes me launch about our ghastly British pork pies all over the place to destroy them.

jonc

The "Chinese" food you get here is NOT Chinese. What you find in most takeaways and restaurants is watered down for western palates, you will not find chicken curry or sweet and sour pork ***** in a proper Chinese establishement! If you go to a Chinese restaurant and don't see any Chinese in there eating, then there's a reason for that.

Turbohot

OK, but we have a Sushi bar in Chester. I've seen many Japanese looking people eating in there. Shame that Sushi doesn't appeal to me to the point that I'd spend 20 quid on a rice wrapped with some fish skin, or I'd give it a try.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Yes that's a spot on observation especially the bit in bold

To be honest I think I'm done with it, most of it is overpriced poor quality rubbish IMO, much like their country's manufacturing come to that

peter a

iTrader: (2)

Go and eat at Hakkasan, Oh my go its good, bloody expensive though.
http://hakkasan.com/, it's awesome.

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

It's not the white post one is it?

Edit to add; I hope it's not the one in Calvo cos that's one of the ones that someone told me was good and it's shoit.

dpb

long way for some grub

from scotland anyway

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

That is so true of any restaurant and is a good tip when travelling around the world too.

thenewgalaxy

There's a place in Preston called Tang that's very pleasant, and I know a place in Leamington Spa called the Phoenix which is also good.

But as the OP says a lot of Chinese restaurants and takeaways serve quite poor food these days.

jonc

It's usually wrapped in seaweed! Sushi uses expensive ingredients and the prices reflect this. Raw fish is an acquired taste, but whatever you try, avoid sea urchin.....

davyboy

Yep, I've found a great one near me that is full of Chinese people.

Slowly working my way through the Dim Sum lunch menu.

dpb

Havnt you got to make sure the sea urchin is moving ?

Turbohot

Ok, and doesn't matter how expensive the ingredients are. If you don't like something, you won't eat it, even if it's made of diamonds and gold.

However, I don't mind Sushi that much tbh. I will go and eat it with Japanese people in that Chester Sushi Bar. That place looks so fast food like that it puts me off. I wish it were more ethnic to look at. Anyway, I must give it a go, and report back.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I will eat anything, so I'll try anything at least once. Sushi is fine by me - neighbour (Japanease) made me some and it was superb. Never had anything close from a UK restaurant.

I love Thai food - spent some time over there many years ago. Only one Thai restaurant round here and thats more of a pseudo Thai as I suspect its ran by Chinese....last time I had a good Thai was when I visiting Nottingham on a errand and stopped in for some lunch....bit of a jaunt for a good meal though.


Going to have a Chinese takeaway tonight, not from my usual Cantonese, but the local take away - he's good and consistant but not your best nor authentic - but he does a good chow mein and generous portions its is freshly prepared and its far better than your usual sickly slop. We fix his cars so when I'm not in a fussy mood I'll throw some business his way. He does a belly buster special which is wrong on so many levels, but after skipping lunch and drinking a few pints in the evening, nothing else satisfies the hunger.

nizmo80

iTrader: (2)

Yea I think its went downhill as well chris.

couple of good take aways in aberdeen where I live which are still pretty good but only one or two of them I still would order from now.

Thai food on the other hand seems to really of taken off up here with loads of restaurants opened up and serving amazing food,
there is even two burger vans that have been converted into thai take aways
in the industrail areas which are meant to be good,,,, think I am going to one tomorrow for lunch

Beef Pad thai noodles are amazing
and for a main the Beef penang curry is absolutely tastey
if you have not been for proper thai food you should give that a try as
for me chinese has taken a back seat and eat alot more thai food now as its so much better

Hows your kitchen coming along by the way