China Gardens - Dudley

I am not pleased with my experience at this restaurant. After waiting for an hour to order food, I was told that they were closing and it was too cold to prepare any food.

I recently visited a restaurant called Szechuan Garden, which I believe is the worst Chinese food I have ever tasted. This was my first time ordering from this place, so I decided to go with the usual chicken curry, fried rice, and spring rolls. The curry had a strange color unlike any other curry I have tried before. It seemed as though it had been frozen and reheated in a microwave, as there were visible outlines of frozen water on top of it. There was even a layer of water at the bottom of the container. The fried rice was mediocre at best, and the spring roll turned out to be a special with two prawns and a small piece of chicken. The bag they came in had a pool of brown grease at the bottom. Even the prawn crackers were stale. To make matters worse, the fortune cookie I received stated that “this weekend will bring you a surprise,” which turned out to be true - the surprise being the disappointment of the food I had just consumed.

When China Gardens changed to Szechuan Gardens, I was excited to have my local Chinese restaurant back. I always like to give new businesses a chance, but my first visit to try my favorite dish, Special Curry Fried Rice and Chips, was disappointing. The curry dish had a watery fluid and the rice seemed off, but the chips were okay. They gave me cheap prawn crackers that were of low quality. The meat in the curry seemed suspicious and had a weird texture. The curry sauce tasted like gravy, not like it should. I'll stick to Sunrise Chinese near Stourbridge for my Chinese meals. They are much better than Szechuan Gardens or any other Halesowen takeaways. Sorry Szechuan Gardens, but I won't be returning.

Ordered mushroom curry and egg fried rice. With starter king prawn toast. Curry tasteless like it had Corn flour added. The fried rice was cold salty and just plain boiled rice with a load of soy sauce added to.colour it. Disgusting. As for the prawn...toast so greasy like it was warmed up. Never again will I eat there. Don't waste your.money.

I was really disappointed to see that China Garden had closed just before Christmas being my favourite Chinese in the area, however the restaurant has now re-opened as Szechuan Gardens. They have re-vamped the appearance inside and it appears to be different staff (although they...were nice before) they are lovely now too. The menu has been updated and is different from before, however a lot of the dishes are still on the menu from the previous. As soon as I saw the restaurant open, I called on the same phone number to order a takeaway. The lady on the phone was really friendly and the delivery was quick. The food arrived hot and fresh. Portion sizes are huge and the food was amazing. It is different from before and although I loved the food before, it is a lot nicer now. Everything tasted fresh and the chicken was soft. The Salt Pepper Chilli Chicken is incredible! We also had free prawn crackers, fortune cookies and two portions of ice cream in tubs (probably due to not being open for too long not sure how long this will last, but it was a nice surprise). To say we only spent the value is brilliant. Will definitely be ordering each week and anyone who was put off by their experience before, it is worth trying it again now as it is completely different.