Dragon Castle

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

I have been to Dragon Castle many times for both lunch and dinner.

The food, especially the dim sum, is probably the best and most reasonably priced in London.

The service is average.

Never experienced problems with the heating - although they have mini heaters everywhere.

Would throughly recommend to anyone.
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SH
8 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, April 08, 2009

I went to the Dragon castle last night for a friends surprise birthday party in the function room. For a start the room was COLD! We all still had our coats on! Anyway They would not let us customise a menu for children and insisted that we could not share a set menu because we had the use of a function room, so had to pay per head. Children were charged £15 a head which is utterly ridiculous seeing as she could have eaten off my platter.The duck starter when it came was cold and there wasnt a lot of it considering 5 of us had ordered the same set menu. In fact I honestly thought the food was very very Expensive and not worth the money I paid. The bill for 20 people came to £719!! Come on get real, I looked around and there is no ways that food came to that amount. Needless to say that when 10:30 came the staff were eager to get us out, only to find when we left that there were still diners downstairs. Disgraceful! Had we known how utterly appalling the night turned out we would have possibly gone downstairs where the same menu was half the price! I am NOT IMPRESSED at all by the Dragon Castle and definitely wont be returning again and I certainly will advise my friends and family as Im sure the other guests will, never to go there for a meal. Such a waste of time.
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Shell
2 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Sunday, March 29, 2009

Again, I second the above reviewer's comments about the cold restaurant. However, the staff were very polite and tried to do everything possible to make us comfortable within their means. The food didn't disappoint: the vegetarian options were numerous and delicious. The only negative was that they wouldn't customise a main course - my wife wanted to have tofu with black-bean sauce but they couldn't do this.
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8 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 7
Saturday, January 03, 2009