To think the standard of Chinese takeaways has dropped significantly?!

Gosh. 2 mains, chips, fried rice and a pancake roll would be £38 for us, not £20. (I have the menu here). And we're in a northern village - not the SE!

Hence why the disappointment if it's not great.

The battered stuff is tasty and I have to fulfil my craving for it now and again. But for the price I can see that it's not good quality ingredients. I think it depends on the place though. One chippy near me does really good salt and pepper chicken but there's another one that does it where it's just a big lump of cauliflower shaped batter with a measly piece of chicken inside. It tastes good initially but it quickly fills me up and leaves me feeling a bit off.

@2cats1dog2babies
Boil your rice and let it cool.
Scramble the eggs in a frying pan and add in the rice. Stir round and when it's hot, add in a few splashes of dark soy sauce and a couple of drops of sesame oil. Stir it all in, make sure it's red hot and serve. My husband usually grumbles about rice, but he'll eat a plateful of this all day long!

I make my own now:

This is fab, and the basic chicken could be used with a sweet and sour or lemon sauce as well

www.deanedwards.co.uk/blog/fakeaway-series/salt-and-pepper-chicken/

I also had a really good website link for authentic dishes, will try and find it.

There are loads you can freeze ahead

The takeaway we used for over 20 years has recently changed ownership as the original owners (quite deservedly) retired. We stuck it out a couple of times but have now given up on them - prices shot up, portion sizes also reduced so double whammy on pricing and the deal breaker was me and DS being ill later on that evening.

Why are people buying the sweet and sour batter in sticky sauce dishes if they don't like them? Just get one of the dozens of alternatives that are meat or prawns with stir fried veg instead.

The one we go to does the best chips ever, I don't care if they're not authentic. Plus home made pancake rolls, which are massive, as are all the portions.

For two of us, we generally get 2 mains, chips and fried rice and a pancake roll, comes to just over £20 with free prawn crackers. There's always enough left over for lunch the next day even though DP is a big eater.

You can buy most dishes from the supermarket now.

My local Morrisons has a very decent selection, to the point I bought all of these for under £20 yesterday:

-selection of wontons, sesame bread and spring rolls with sweet chilli sauce
-tempura prawns with sweet chilli sauce (twice what you'd get in a takeaway)
-salt and pepper pork belly (ditto - they also do Chinese sprices, BBQ and teriyaki)
-BBQ wings and ribs

That would easily have come to £34, at the quanities I got probably closer to £50 and not even including delivery in my local takeaways. Add some egg fried rice (cheap and easy to make yourself) and you have a huge family meal. And yes, I know that some of those dishes are Japanese-leaning, but they are not really different to Chinese when prepared for the Bristish palate.

Which recipe do you recommend? I'm going to do this.

My favourite local Chinese takeaway changed hands after covid and the new owners make everything far too sweet. I get that crispy chilli chicken or kung po are quite sweet but even the curry sauce tastes more of sugar than anything else and the satay is just curry sauce with extra sugar and a couple of peanuts. I've been trying other local places that used to be fine and they are the same, very sweet. I make my own curry now from a tub of paste but I miss the other dishes that aren't so easy.

We have a Chinese restaurant (sit in) locally that has a much smaller range of food and it's really good. I miss the old school takeaway though.

This.
Chinatown is populated and run by a completey different demographic now.

Chinese takeaway food doesn't tend to agree with my stomach so I don't eat it, but I expect it's like everywhere else - increasing costs leading to price rises and/or buying lower quality ingredients.

We have a lovely Chinese neighbour who cooks us Chinese food - it is incredible. So aromatic and flavourful and healthy too! It's made me really not like the greasy, flavourless carb fest that is a Chinese take away. And it's expensive now too, when our neighbour grows a lot of the stuff she uses in the garden (in warmer months) and uses really basic ingredients. Chinese take away does actual Chinese food prepared with love a disservice!

Our favourite one has gone downhill since the son took over. We had two orders and both were dire. The chicken was cheaper chicken where the fibres are all wrong.

We are now buying up Goldfish Chinese curry sauce, which is wonderful, and Lucky Boat noodles and making a lot ourselves. Saves money and is cheaper.

I agree, im always disappointed after one these days.

I like to make my own but am always underwhelmed by my egg fried rice - anyone use any good recipes?

I agree. My local ones are awful. Luckiky in my city, we have some amazing Chinese restaurants and they taste fresh and lovely.

How can the standard of Chinese takeaways have gone down in the whole UK?

Genuine question btw, I'm not in the UK and they seem just the same as usual here.

Good point! I had never thought of that. Traditional Chinese takeaways were run by the Hong Kong Cantonese whereas now most are run by people from China or first gen immigrants. The same in London Chinatown.

Maybe they're just massive at your local. A main here would be say a beef curry. Side of fried rice. Potentially at least one person is not going to feel full on sharing a meal. Having a mixed starter for 2 to also share is hardly half a menu. I'm not even a big eater so very rarely finish mine, but I don't try to put people down just because you have massive portions at your local Chinese or you both have small appetites that means you are full after sharing a meal meant for one.

@SpanThatWorld that is exactly what happened in my family. My Dad ran a Restaurant and take away. My siblings are engineers, pharmacists, medical researchers and staff.

The one I occasionally use is very good, I’m friends with the owner, she will do me stuff off menu.

Take away food is nothing like the Chinese food I make at home, nor the stuff my Dad made. He had been a financial officer back in HK. He ate mainly steamed fish. My Dad never added MSG to the food he ate, I don’t either.

My favourites include minced chilli pork with tofu and Pak Choi. Braised belly pork, char siu buns, steamed sea bass stuffed with ginger and spring onion, fish head stew, chicken porridge.

The cost of food has seen a drop in standards or amounts in many places. There is a nice pub not too far from us, people tie up their horses in the beer garden. Before covid the food was excellent, we had dinner after Covid, you could tell it was not freshly cooked anymore and was just pre made and heated up. We haven’t been back.

I had an amazing Chinese Take away in a Little village on holiday in Wales last year, can’t remember the village name unfortunately.

I've given up on Chinese food.
I used to love a Chinese until our local one which was great closed down.

Feeling very lucky, we’ve got a really good one near us that deliver.
Think we probably spend around £70 for the 3 of us, it’s always too much but I will have my chow mein the next day because all the other bits we order excite me more and fill me up too much to have more than a few bites 😂
we order…
prawn toast
2 x salt and chilli squid
half a crispy duck
beef chowmein
dh goes a bit off piste and changes his mind each time for his main
chips (ds pretty much eats the squid, prawn toast, duck and chips!)
prawn crackers
ive forgotten something else!
I think the duck alone costs around the £20 mark.
is it authentic? Probably not, I’ve never been to China so can’t say for sure. But it’s bloody lovely and it’s been there for years and years as a handed down family business and they are so friendly when I walk past, I often just call out a cheery hello!

Exactly. You just have to chuckle really at the woke ridiculousness of it all... Meanwhile, on planet earth I do love a nice salt and pepper king prawn

@Aintnobodygottime ’Half the menu’ for two main courses, a shared starter and a side? OK.

Well no, it's two main courses, a starter, and two sides.

Given that Chinese portions are massive, one main course is almost enough to feed two people. So when I get a Chinese for two people, it generally consists of one main and one side.

Spring onions
The onions were not skiing.... I'd expect to pay more to see my onions on a piste.. 😆

Gressingham duck do a nice crispy duck and pancakes. We had that from Tesco for the princely sum of £6

Some gyoza and cucumber and skiing onions, some katsu bites and a bottle of wine all under £20 and it was better than the local to be fair