Mandarin Palace

Five of us booked in for a meal here, in part to celebrate for Christmas before the season gets too busy but also to check out the renovation which closed the restaurant for several weeks earlier on in the year. The staff are really relaxed and welcoming. The décor is contemporary and they’ve made good use of the space, fitting in a lot of tables but you don’t feel cramped. All the larger tables have lazy Susan’s, and if you want a private dining experience there are alcoves. Private parties can have an area sectioned off from the main restaurant by partitioning off some tables. You choose from a very large menu, it’s comprehensive selection of dishes would have you pondering for ages, but the set meals have more than enough food and variety for the average person, the pricing is about right too and it takes the hassle out of ordering. The wine list is well stocked too and there’s a cocktail list to choose from as well. We started with a few typical Chinese starters, prawn toast, spring roll, skewers of chicken, ribs, and dumpling, then chicken sweetcorn soup, followed by crispy fried duck, the main courses with rice were sea bass, sizzling beef, huge king prawn sweet and sour, pak choy, Singapore fried noodles, ample for the five of us. Dessert was a selection of fruit, with ice cream and a banana fritter. The owner came over to check we were OK and we’d enjoyed the food. It’s an excellent place to go for food, ambiance and value. We weren’t disappointed.

Our local chinese was able to walk in without a booking. Lovely Chinese and the restaurant has just been refurbished but very expensive. £58 for 2

I wouldn’t trek all the way to Gants Hill to have dinner here, but if you’re nearby, there is worse you can do than to stop here for some decent Chinese food.
This place is kind of my local dim sum joint — on the days that my family can’t be bothered to go into town, we stop here. It caters for both chinese and western tastes — you can have the usual crispy aromatic duck, sweet and sour etc etc or you can even enjoy some pretty decent dim sum. My family have even had a traditional chinese wedding banquet here.
It’s not especially expensive (at least, not dim sum anyway) and the décor is fairly traditional and tasteful. Service is polite and friendly.

My sisters and I decided to have a nice, pleasant New Years ’08 and so went down to a local Chinese we hadn’t tried yet.
Mandarin is beautiful. With a décor that transports you to another corner of the world — with lush greenery and tiny antiques everywhere, the oriental feel is most definitely delivered to it’s best!
As it was New Years, they had a host of singers doing covers of classic party tracks to get everyone in the mood although there wasn’t an ounce of the rowdiness there usually is in restaurants on NY. If you wanted to avoid all the buzz (as we did; boring, old hags — I know! It was an off year!) there was alternative seating, just as beautiful but a little hidden away from the centre.
The food was lovely — with some of my favourite chinese dishes on the menu including manchurian chicken and seasame prawn toast. The service was surprisingly quick for New Years Eve — with staff who were polite, patient and efficient. A great selection of non-​alcoholic cocktails were also available from the bar… which were a delight for us; the ONLY three sober girls there!
Lovely.