Royal China (Baker Street)

First of, people should be aware that there are two Royal China restaurants on Baker Street. The Royal China Club, which serves Dim sum and Royal China 24 - 26 (the restaurant now under review!)

We originally thought we had booked the royal china club, but were directed down the road to Royal China. This is the first and last time we will go to this restaurant.

There were 6 of us, 5 ordered set menu at £30 pp, and i ordered a few dishes. My meal came about 15 minutes before everyone elses did, and when it did come it was cold. The satay was dry and hard. The sauces on the other meals tasted like something out of a jar (ketchup, BBQ sauce) the meat and fish tasted frozen and plastic. The noodles were greasy with no flavour. All the food served to us was cold. My local chinese serves better food than there. The best part of the meal was the fruit at the end. The only positive thing i will say is that there was plenty of the food - we just didn't want to eat it as it was disgusting! What a waste of money. And the staff were constantly pushing the drinks on us. Staff weren't rude but the service wasn't brilliant.

I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone. You'd be better off going to china town where the food is nicer and less expensive. Wasted journey.

Apparently Royal china club does nice Dim Sum, but we wont be giving that a try.
Comment on this reader review

Holly
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Saturday, October 18, 2008

My wife and I live near the Royal China so we use it a fair bit to eat in or even if we fancy a takeaway. We stopped going for a while as the food had got very bland and expensive. However last Sunday we were in the mood for some Dim Sum and popped along. We were seated straight away and had an utterly delicious meal. The Dim Sum tasted really fresh and tasty, the sesame prawn rolls were wonderful. I have always found the service really good at the Royal China it is one of the few restaurants you can ask any passing waiting staff for something and it comes straight away. You may not get a great deal of chat from the staff but they are friendly and do their job really well.

All in all I was really pleased to see that their kitchen had got some of it's Mojo back and was turning out great food again. We will definetly be going back soon
Comment on this reader review

David Ginsberg
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Monday, September 01, 2008

we came in without reservations (who might want to book tables at this place???) so we were seated in the corner next to what looked like the staff corner. service - our waitresses literally dropped our food on the table in front of us... waiter who took the order showed such impatience and hastened us into ordering the first wine on the list. appetizer looked good, but was not worth the money. the main meal, was literally disgusting - we ordered duck and chicken. chicken - dry as a rock. duck - with 1 cm of fat and even thicker skin all dripping with fat. so for about 25 GBP we got a 2GBP worth of edible meat. well, the best piece of food throughout entire dinner were the free gherkin dices that they put (sorry - dropped) on every table... at the end we paid 46 GBP... a sum worth two tickets to a great jazz concert! and for that - got the most dissatisfying dinner ever.. go to chinatown for chinese food. or even better - go to china..
Comment on this reader review

goof
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Friday, August 08, 2008

My wife and I been here for lunch one day.

We ordered two main dishes and two dimsum. When we almost finished two main dishes, one waitress came to our table and handed a dish of dimsum with muttered some words. I even didn't notice her serving. I called her and complained about her poor serving. Suddenly she started to shouting us.

We were so upset and called the manager.

Even though the manager apologized us, he refused our asking an apology from the waitress. I remained the letter of the situation and my email address with the manager's word of a reply. However, I do not get any comments from this restaurant.

Food is not matter. Even though this restaurant provides you a wonderful dish, how can you enjoy the meal with this impoliteness and rudeness.

This restaurant ruinned our London trip.
Comment on this reader review

Doori Song
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, June 02, 2008

This group is really going down hill; everything taste utterly mass produced! If you're going to pay this sort of price might as well head to superior Yauatcha or the much cheaper Harbour City. To top it off the seafood fried noodles was a little short in quality compared to your local takeaway. Service was however decent.
View/Add comments (1)

bellaphon
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 2
Sunday, March 16, 2008

I have been to a few branches of Royal China and this is definitely the worst of them - not because of the food, but because of the service. I don't think I have ever experienced a more rude service in any London restaurant of this calibre, and that's saying alot. Food is expensive here, but it is delicious. Ambiance is fine, nothing to write home about, but it is better than most of the drudge and dreary Chinatown restaurants. The food is ultimately why I keep coming back to Royal China (though never to the Baker Street branch again) but the service edges on the disgusting.
Comment on this reader review

DJC
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 4
Saturday, March 08, 2008

Just been for the first time in a long time and not really impressed. It feels industrial and high-turnover. There aren't enough staff to really look after the clients so they all look harassed, although they're doing their best. The food was respectable but not special. We didn't come out of there on a high.
Comment on this reader review

Steve Freeman
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 4
Friday, February 22, 2008

We have booked at this restaurant on several occasions, only to find out once there that they did not have our booking; obviously this should be improved
Comment on this reader review

M HERMITAGE
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 7
Monday, December 03, 2007

We went to this restaurant. It was 10pm & they accommodated a party of 4. The staff were very helpful & the service was very very quick. Our food was excellent - we will certainly go back next time we're in London. Very enjoyable meal.
Comment on this reader review

Stephen Brown
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Sunday, December 02, 2007

We went to Royal China for a Bank Holiday monday dim sum brunch with a reasonably large group - including 3 young children.

We arrived early so we had no problem getting a suitable table and we managed to get 2 high chairs - we asked for a 3rd but they had no more! Given the numbers of small children in the place I think they could do with investing in a few more (and the ones they have are not looking so fresh either!).

We duly ordered our dim sum which arrived reasonably quickly and was all very tasty - I can't say it wowed me in terms of flavour but was good quality & well executed i.e. fresh and steaming hot but I have been other places where the Dim sum is more interesting.

Service was fine but they could have been a bit more helpful in guiding us (we massively over ordered on one set of dim sum as we didn't realise how many came in each basket and a quick double check wouldn't have gone amiss) but they were great at refilling the tea and overall it was a good place to spend a few hours with friends.

Price was reasonable- we weren't drinking so that kept it down and despite the overordering still came in at £14 per head.
Comment on this reader review

nevster
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Tuesday, August 28, 2007