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?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

@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!

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.

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.

Order anything veggie here and it's just full of cheap thick white onion.

I think this must be the reason. It's a pretty thankless job running a takeaway. Our local chipshop has changed hands four times in the last six years, the costs are higher now and the margins are just too slim.

Make your own!

I made sweet chilli fish with egg fried rice yesterday... super quick and not expensive

Cook rice (150g basmati, 300ml water, pinch of salt, bring to boil, cover and simmer for 10 minutes then turn off leaving lid on)

Chop peppers and onions. Cut up a firm white fish eg I used basa, but you could use chicken or firm tofu. Roll in corn flour. Meanwhile fry the peppers and onion on a medium heat for 5 minutes until softening but not browned, remove from pan. Shallow fry fish (or other protein) in oil (I use sunflower with a little sesame oil for flavour) toss veg back in then add sweet chilli sauce (I'm cheating) and heat for 3-4 minutes.

Meanwhile heat oil and add rice, chopped spring onions make a well and add 1-2 beaten eggs, once they start to cook mix in with the rice. Serve immediately.

I can make this in 15 minutes so even if I have to run to Lidl to fetch the ingredients I can beat the takeaway!!!

mitogoshigg

Make your own!

Tbh when I order takeaway it's because I CBA to cook, not because I don't know how to.

Pre kids we'd go out for dinner, but these days a takeaway is a treat.

For people asking how we spent £40, our order was

Hot and sour soup £4.10
Spare ribs £9
Beef in black bean £8.50
Chicken chow mein £8.50
Egg fried rice £3
Salt and pepper chips £4
Delivery £2.50

Total £39.60

So sorry if that makes us greedy bastards but we like a bit of variety when we order and normally some left over for the next day.

Apologies to the food police for ordering more than you do.

I haven’t read the comments but we haven’t spent less than around that on any takeaway in the last couple of years! A curry that used to be £6 is now £9.50 and of course you want sides! Life has got expensive. I’d love to know where people are still getting a takeaway for 2 for £20?!?

The woks of life website does really good Chinese takeaway and authentic recipes for anyone looking to try.

Op, your Chinese is expensive, ours would be £31 for your order in the SE, and thats new prices that went up yesterday! Id get free prawn crackers and spring rolls too.

(They were handing out the new menus earlier when I walked past, I don't have them on speed dial 🤣)

it must depend where you live. In cities I’m sure there is lovely Chinese food, but there isn’t anywhere near where I live (rural south coast) that is nice.
We have a Chinese takeaway in our village (which is pretty much the only thing here!) and we can’t get any takeaway delivered here from anywhere else so it’s always ridiculously busy, but the food is horrible quality. Really questionable meat.

I've never been a big fan of uk chinese takeaway food to be honest, its always been slimy, salty and one dimensional in my opinion, with a few notable exceptions. I am absolutely not saying that actual Chinese cuisine is any of those things at all as real Chinese food is delicious but that is usually not available at the average takeaway.

I do think standards are down in many places but we still enjoy takeaway from our favourite Indian and Japanese restaurants on occasion.

My parents live up north and they have a choice of banging places.

Where I live the local one that has a chain of restaurants charges the same as eating in! It's like £15 a meal! And twice now their sweet & sour has been bulked out with lumps of cooking apple and a scare amount of pineapple. It's shit and we don't buy it anymore.

@Ohfishsticks haha, thank you! Do they do prawn ones? I'm not even that mad on the day glo sauce. I could just use hoi sin or sriracha.
I'll check them out. There's a new Aldi near me I've not tried yet.

I wish more local takeaways offered Hakka. One of my favourites is honey garlic chicken.

I always had chicken but stopped eating it (food poisoning) so went for char siu peking sauce the other day and was really pleased with it

Didn't realise how much chicken I ate until I stopped eating it!

Hey, it’s far cheaper than ours!

We have an excellent local Chinese that is still run by the family, with three generations now involved. The prices are high but the portions are absolutely enormous. They do us three meals minimum. They use real good quality meat and fish. The restaurant bit is always packed.

Sadly because of all that, and the fact that DH and I have very different tastes, and the kids join in, we rarely get change from £80 so they are a rare treat.

I’ve also noticed the hygiene ratings have dropped too. It’s the first thing I check on n Uber Eats