Dragon Castle

Came here with the family tonight as I've been here before and thought it was an excellent restaurant but tonight was the totally opposite! The staff was unfriendly, waited ages for food, food was so disappointing and the bill was ludicrous!! Even put a service charge when there was no service!!

I'm never stepping foot back here again and thats for sure!
Comment on this reader review

Steve
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, September 12, 2011

Once again there are reviews of puzzling hostility on this site.

We went yesterday as a duo and had an excellent lunch. Chinese Tea, Half a roast Duck, Jellyfish and Pork Hock, dim sums - steamed prawn dumplings, prawn cheung fun, Chicken feet in blackbean sauce, bean curd wrapped pork and prawn, glutinous rice in wrappers x 2.

There was no discernible difference from Chinatown. This is a good cantonese restaurant. It is not Xinjiang, that is an entirely different style of Chinese food, like Turkish is from Portuguese.

Service was brisk but attentive. The place was nearly full but we were found a table - it was about 2.30 on a Sunday. The meal came to £43 including service and we took much of the duck and the jellyfish home for dinner.

We have been before, and been pleased on the two previous occasions
Comment on this reader review

bill
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 10
Monday, August 22, 2011

We came here when this place first opened, when it had had excellent reviews from The Times, The Guardian, The Observer and it was brilliant. Interesting menu, varied, authentic. We have just been again, around 2 years later, and it was disgusting. THIS IS NOT CHINESE FOOD!

Flavourless, bland menu which you could find in any bog standard chinese. Its not cheap either. It has gone to seed inside and we couldnt want to get out of there. It's sad that it has become like this.

I even told the waitress it was bad, she agreed and said she doesnt eat it! what further proof is needed.

If you want a great chinese in this area there is an excellent one, of the Xinjiang province, its called Silk Road and is on Camberwell Church St.
Comment on this reader review

neal
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Friday, March 04, 2011

Very disappointed! As a chinese person myself I feel let down by these people at Dragon Castle. I have never written a review before due to the lack of time I have but after Dragon Castle has let me down time and time again I realise I need to do something about it.

This afternoon we ordered 'scallop cheung fun' during dim sum as one of the many dishes only to find they used flour in place of real scallops, the flour when cooked turns chewy and so this creates a texture similar to scallops if you have never eaten 'scallop cheung fun' before you would think this is how it's meant to be. I've had many in my time including some in Dragon Castle themselves (in the past), the scallops are meant to be real, not mocked!

Also, the steamed baby octopus's were not fully cooked and same with the fried squid cakes. The waitress explained that they were meant to be similar to Japanese food and so the dishes were deliberately undercooked, but this is a Chinese Restaurant serving dim sum for crying out loud!! I am Chinese too! I have never eaten anything undercooked in any Chinese Restaurant in my 30+ past life! Chinese cuisine DO NOT INCLUDE UNDERCOOKED FOOD, nor does it say in the menu that the food I ordered are meant to part cooked.

It is now 10:30pm which is 10hours since I have returned from Dragon Castle and I still feel extremely thirsty, same with both my mum and sister. The amount of MSG they add to their food is high above average, they need that flavour enhancer because their food is really that terrible. They are ripping you off!

I have decided never to return to Dragon Castle, I would rather travel further up to the one in Old Kent Road instead. Shame on you Dragon Castle!
Comment on this reader review

Jeff
4 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 3
Monday, May 03, 2010

Forget Chinatown; forget expensive Chinese restaurant with michelin star. This is THE real Chinese restaurant. The food is good and very consistent. I have been going there for 2 years and I have never been disapointed.
Comment on this reader review

MJ
7 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 4
Sunday, April 18, 2010

Dragon Castle is our local Chinese restaurant and we love it. The food has always been consistently good. We mainly go for dimsum and it has never disappointed. We definately haven't experienced the cold and the bad service which many of the reviewers seem to write about. When we have been there the waiters have always been quite attentive even when it gets very busy.

We have been to quite a few different dim sum places in london and still believe that the quality and the value of the food at dragon castle is great. If you live around this area its definately worth giving it a try!
Comment on this reader review

RH
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Saturday, February 13, 2010

I visited this restaurant for the first time, on Friday the 29/01/2010 with my girlfriend, and have never felt so disappointed, let down, and ripped off by the standard, quality, and price of the meal. We ordered a set meal for two with a bottle of water which came to £52.20. The lettuce was soggy and wilted and looked as if it had been lying about in the kitchen for the last week or so. If I didn't know any better I would swear that it was straight out of TESCO from just up the road.The food was bland, the portions very small, and it took a considerable time, (over 40 minutes) to reach our plate. Needless to say we were not at all impressed. Forget this place. The Tai Won Mein noodle house outside the Elephant and Castle beats this place hands down in EVERY WAY.

Dragon Castle is a Joke, which is definitely NOT funny.
Comment on this reader review

1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Sunday, January 31, 2010

I wish the dragon in the name would breathe some fire into the room....i don't like eating in my overcoat! The dim sum are very good, and I have not suffered from the cold food some other reviews mention. The service is what I believe is politely referred to as "typical Chinese". I am always amazed that we have to put up with charmless, unhelpful service in Chinese restaurants. At my most recent visit the waiter refused to take our order for more food, as the kitchen was closed. This was at 4.35, when clearly stated on the menu is " dim sum available until 4.45". If I can't persuade a waiter to let me spend more money in his restaurant, it helps to explain why they can't afford to pay for more heating.
Comment on this reader review

Shappo - View all reviews by this user
5 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 7
Tuesday, January 05, 2010

I've had dim sum all over the world, and in several places in London. I've now been to Dragon Castle twice, and I won't be returning.

Food: The first time I went it was average. It was good, but nothing to write home about. The second time I went to Dragon Castle the food was lukewarm, but then again the whole place was cold, so maybe the food was hot, but rapidly cooled. Cold food does not taste good. We did ask them to reheat it, but they were a bit rude about it and when the food came back warm it didn't quite look as fresh as it could have, in fact it looked as if it had been reheated in a microwave. Microwaved dim sum is worse than cold dim sum.

Service: The first time I went it was typical bad Chinese service, you know, the usual disorganised clumsy and abrupt service that you find in Chinese restaurants world wide. The second time I went it was down right rude. Yes they were busy, but that's no excuse for being dismissive, frustrated and defensive.

Atmosphere: I love the décor, but the background music consists of a very limited number of songs that is on a repeat loop. It was the same music the first time as well as the second time I went, but because I was there longer the second time I got to hear each song at least 5 times. Whilst waiting and waiting for the food to arrive I started counting. Also, it's really, really cold inside.

Value: The first time it was pretty average value. The second time, well, cold food and bad service is worth very little to me, so it wasn't good value at all.

Not worth going back to.
Comment on this reader review

Simone Jones
3 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 4
Saturday, September 26, 2009

I’m a regular at Dragon Castle and have always found the service and food to be good.

Lately though, things have changed, service is now average at best, and more often than not, rude. Note that there have been staffing changes for the last 9 months or so.

Food which use to good enough for us to return to almost once a fortnight is now quite poor and often cold. Yes, the temperature of the food may be due to the lack of heating, but even so, it has always been edible. We always go prepared with coats in the winter, though some winters they manage to get the central heating working, and once they even supplied our table with it’s own little fan heater, but there was not enough of these to go around, luckily the waiter recognised us as regulars... not that we should have been given preferential treatment.

Today however was a turning point. It takes a lot to dissuade us from a restaurant, especially since we are people of habit and routine. However the new maitre'de was not only abrupt with us and the other customers, but he was clearly telling off one of his assistants (dressed in traditional dress) as well. The whole experience was more than a little off putting.

Still we waited and kept waiting even after one party of diners became abrupt back to the waiter and then stormed out.

Once seated at our table we hoped to just eat as normal and get out. However this was not meant to be. We did our usual and ticked the items we wanted off the dim sum menu, but we ended up with the wrong items. As my wife is vegetarian, it is rather important that we get what we order. We then made this known to the waitress who apologised and sent the correct items to our table, which were thankfully warm.

We didn’t think any more of it again until the bill came and we found that we had been charged for everything, even the returned uneaten dishes. We once again had a talk to the waitress who then referred to the maitre'de.

The maitre'de insisted that there was no mistakes (as they have a computerised system), and became defensive when we said that we wouldn’t pay for what we hadn’t eaten. He became so rude that my wife got embarrassed and said that we should just pay and never come back. This we did.

Needless to say that we’re both very sadden by the experience, but I had been thinking about changing Chinese Restaurants for a while anyway.
Comment on this reader review

Trev
2 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 3
Sunday, September 06, 2009