Surbiton Chinese Takeaway 19 Berrylands Road, Surbiton KT5 8QX

"Very good service, food, reasonable price worth going to."

"Great take away, we live around the corner and always go here"

"Good value, good flavour, freshly made to order. What more do you want from your Chinese takeaway?"

"Am done with this place. The food is no where near as good as it used to be. Was always handy to use especially if you had been in the pub opposite as it always rounded the night off nicely. Ordered the kung po chicken. Now anyone who knows their food knows that kung pao or kung po is supposed to be crispy around the edges (normally deep fried in corn starch first) but this is just cooked chicken in lots of sauce. I mentioned this a while ago and the girl just shrugged her shoulders. Thought I would order again and it hasn’t changed so obviously they don’t want to listen. My grilled dumplings were slimy (this used to be the best place for grilled dumplings). The special fried rice was dry. The squid in black bean was ok but the sauce was so thin it made water jealous (obviously the jarred black bean sauce was watered down as we’re running out) and the ribs were dry. It’s pretty obvious that they just use jarred sauces bought from the Chinese wholesalers. I use the Chinese wholesalers in Kingston and their sauces taste miraculously like their jarred sauces. In the past I mentioned to them about doing deliveries which the lady behind the counter just shrugs her shoulders at if she doesn’t understand (please don’t pretend you don’t understand me as I know your English is very good). Last night I went to order some food and thought I would check the menu on line first and their is no menu to check. I walked down their in the end to order and asked the guy behind the counter if there is any kind of menu online and he just coldly answered ‘no’ with as much charisma as dishwater. What I would say to this place is : 1: Actually offer a smile to customers and make them feel welcome especially to returning long term customers and new ones as well 2. Actually start serving food that is decent just like it used to be 3: stop acting like a characature from the 80’s Chinese takeaways where you pretend you don’t understand what is being said 4: actually be appreciative that you have customers coming to you. End of the day you seem to have forgotten this and act like we are doing you a favour by ordering from here. We all work hard for our money so a bit of appreciation that we are choosing your place to spend our money would be a nice touch. We can always go elsewhere (which I will do from now on) 5: get into the modern age. Get a website and do deliveries. So just to summarise, sort it out as the customers (who you just take for granted) simply won’t come back and you will not have a business (you know, that place which pays you the money so can have nice things in life). Oh and please don’t give the excuse that ‘you get busy sometimes’. I am paying the same price whether you are busy or quiet so the expectation is that the food quality and service should be the same whether you are busy or not"