"Hospitality businesses have had it tough over the past few years, but even making allowances for that, there’s no excuse for probably the worst meal I’ve had for a very long time. I should have paid attention to other recent reviews. It takes a particular skill (and not a good one) to be able to serve up a meal so completely lacking in flavour and taste. First up, the restaurant lacks any atmosphere. Granted it was early evening but we were put in an empty room so cold we had to keep our coats on. A couple of small heaters had no impact at all. On the positive side, service was attentive. The mixed starter plate was the usual mixed starter in a Chinese restaurant. Not home made, all bought in, we’ve had it numerous times. The chicken satay was a particular low point but fairly typical of all the meat dishes, a rare combination of tough but watery. As for the sauces, absolutely a million miles away from even moderate flavour to coat the meats. And sesame toast and spring roll – how can you cook the flavour out of that? Crispy aromatic duck with pancakes – the pancakes were the only things as expected. A bit of a high point, almost. There was no crispy and no aromatic, the duck was bordering on tepid and again no flavour. We had a polite word with our server who said he would speak to the kitchen to see what could be done. Given they were unlikely to be preparing fresh for us, I doubted we’d get anything. Three dishes came out flavourless and barely warm. A chicken dish came out with the server proclaiming the hope that this dish would be different. Indeed it was. It was hot, for a start. Then we found out why, it seemed like in order to get some flavour into the dish, it had been given a quick go in a wok and doused in soy sauce. So, it did have flavour, just not the flavour of the dish. Given it was so cold in there we couldn’t really even laugh the experience off as ‘one of those things’. I can’t recommend this restaurant to my worst enemy."
