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

[Orangelight23]

So after a very very long day we got the kids to bed, opened a bottle of wine and eagerly awaited our Chinese takeaway.

It was woeful! £40 that we could have just thrown away, we should have learnt our lesson last month when we had an equally awful one from somewhere else. Is it just out area or has the standard dropped?

The standard of food, generally, has dropped significantly.

It's all msg, additives and low quality ingredients.

People are obviously referring to what we in the UK call 'Chinese food' - even if it isn't the same as you would get in China - and it's clearly very popular.

I'm sure it isn't anybody on here's intention, but making a sweeping generalisation about all Chinese food establishments - which are obviously mainly run by Chinese people (or those with Chinese heritage), with accusations of basically diddling customers and being lazy and uncaring about their businesses, is sounding a little bit xenophobic, if not verging on the racist.

We have other takeaways in our town too - chip shops, pizza places, Indian, Greek, Turkish etc. - and we don't even live in a particularly big town. Some are excellent; some are terrible; the majority are perfectly fine. There's no correlation between the quality and running of the establishments with the nationality of the proprietors.

Somebody upthread expressed horror/displeasure/surprise at a non-Chinese person running a Chinese takeaway - does that unease also extend to Chinese people in the UK who don't work in Chinese takeaways or restaurants? I would very much hope not.

I'm still gutted the local Chinese I've ordered from for nearly 30 years closed down last year due to increased costs. Cannot find a replacement locally that is anywhere near as good.

We don’t have them anymore, we moved in 2023, we had one near us at our previous house that was adequate, we tried two when we moved here and both were dreadful. Plus for health reasons I have to watch carbs and sugar.

We occasionally have fish and chips which is good from a small family run shop, but I can’t eat gluten and they only do gluten free once a week. DH and I also find the portions so large that we share a large cod and chips between us these days.

Yanbu. I yearn for the hot, crisp, tasty spring rolls, stuffed full of fat crunchy fresh beansprouts and other veg! What is that soggy paste they put in them now?

Used to love 'Chinese' food. But out of the half a dozen places we've tried in the last 3 years they've all been pretty much inedible! Synthetic, sweet, nasty tasting gunk!

There was one here that contained no msg ..

it was lovely didn’t feel sluggish next morning or wake up in the night thirsty . That got sold and now is the same as the rest

Totally agree. Chinese is greasy, full of msg, the batter often be soggy. It's a sweet sticky mess of goo. The meat is cheap and boiled. A total waste of cash and cals.

And have you seen the consistency of the sweet and sour sauce the next day ?!!! SOLIDIFIED AND GROSS

The anticipation is always so much greater than the experience. It takes progressively longer for the bad memory to fade so I order less frequently. Down to less than one a year now, and I may even have given up for good.

I think this is true for almost all takeaways and pub and restaurant food in the last few years.

We had one open near us and so many people were raving about it, said it was amazing etc. I got a takeaway and thought it was crap. Everything tasted of the same spice mix. They don’t even do lemon chicken which is what I usually get. Crap

I think it can be really hit or miss depending on your area. We moved somewhere with very limited Chinese options, but the ones available were (what I would class), pretty expensive! We usually pay £50 for a meal for two, by the quality has always been fantastic

its always more than I’d like to pay for a night in, but every time we order with friends, they rave about the quality of food. Thankfully the in-laws appreciate the fact when they stay and we order for 4 (plus the 5 year old), it’s close to £100 and they always offer to pay as it’s a lot but so tasty. If the quality dropped though, we wouldn’t dream of continuing

M and S Chinese starters and make our own mains.

Not had a takeaway for years. They are so poor and expensive. Even the best rated ones are crap now. We gave up.

I don't buy Chinese takeaways anymore as 80% of it is bloody onions. They cram onions into every single dish and give you two measly and scraggy bits of frozen and deep fried bleurgh. If i wanted a plate of onions and oil I'd make it myself ffs.

Homemade lemon chicken is the best btw

Completely agree. My DH and I were looking for a good Chinese takeaway this week, and gave up. I prefer to save up for a special meal at a lovely Chinese restaurant like Mr Chow or Hunan in London.

No link I'm afraid. Slice beef really thin (obv), put it in a bowl with loads of cornflour, salt and pepper and a tiny amount of 5 spice, coat it well with the flour and deep fry in batches. Keep it warm in the oven.

Slice up loads of carrot, green pepper, brocoli etc. Stir fry but keep crunchy. Add garlic and ginger. Pour over a sauce made from roughly 50% sweet chilli sauce, 20% ketchup, bit of soy, juice of a lemon, extra chilli if you want, 30% water. You want it quite runny. Whack the beef back in. Thicken up a little. Spring onions on top. Bosh.

All the slicing is a pain in the ass and it's messy to make, but waaaaay better than my local take away. All the crunchy veg really lifts it.

Our local Chinese is still consistently good, and we also have a really nice local Indian curry house.

Neither of them are on Deliveroo or Uber Eats. The Chinese delivers and you have to pay cash (and their delivery guy is lovely, and never rings the bell as he remembers we have young kids). The Indian doesn't deliver and is collection only.

We've stopped using Deliveroo and Uber Eats because it's so expensive, often crap quality, and they treat their drivers so badly as well.

I got me and the kids a Chinese other night first time in ages. Not going there again and it's our local. Chicken fried rice used to have peas through it and lots of chicken. Don't know if anywhere even does make it like that anymore. But the way they had made it was just fried rice with shredded chicken shoved on top and a bit of a sauce on the top aswell it was rotten and the chilli chips were soggy too

I make my own sweet and sour and satay sauce now. I'll have a go at the crispy beef though, thank you @Ablondiebutagoody that's my go to when ordering a Chinese meal, so it'll be good to do it myself.
We used to use a local one, but a couple of years ago, they really went down hill, the food was abysmal. I see they only have 2.8 stars on Just Eat now! Grim!
I found no beef in the crispy chilli beef either! And about one and a half large onions and two slices of green pepper! It's a total rip off!

When I used to have Chinese food , the MSG used to make me feel as if I've taken drugs ( never have ) but my heart would race , and I'd feel spaced out and jumpy .

People banging on about the MSG, what a load of fabricated racist shite. So you never eat meat, tomatoes or parmesan then? Glutamate is naturally occuring in loads of food and you eat it all the time. Not to mention it's in stuff like Doritos.

It does not cause any physical symptoms. What you're talking about is a result of all the sodium from the spy sauce etc.

Not just takeaways - we struggle to find a good Chinese restaurant locally - had a favourite but they retired
Plenty of choice for lovely Thai and Indian restaurants
Im getting better at doing my own!
On Xmas eve we did lucky lettuce, crispy duck, seaweed, noodle dishes etc
There are some great Chinese supermarkets in Liverpool and Manchester so we head there and stock up on sake at the same time

We all grew up eating HK Cantonese fare. Yes, it was anglicised, but it was delicious in its own way. The kids of those takeaway owners didn’t bother going into the takeaways trade - they wanted professions, so this way of cooking is not being passed down. Now many of the new people running the takeaways are often from the mainland and trying to ‘copy’ this British Cantonese food and sadly not succeeding. Not all obviously, there are a few hotpot places springing up which is more authentic but I do miss well-cooked old style takeaways 😞

Dear lord