Welcome to China Garden Chinese Restaurant & Take Away

Having stated in my previous review that I would like to dine in to see how it varies from takeaway, I had the opportunity to do so tonight. Not as impressive as it appeared when standing there waiting for takeaway. Maybe it had to do with the birthday party at the back (yet to start) and that there was only one other couple in the restaurant, so there was no real food smells. Average Chinese restaurant, two small dining areas split by the takeaway counter.

We wanted to have some Chinese tea and satay sticks while we contemplating the menu but that wasn't permitted for some reason. So we ordered! The tea was extremely weak even after waiting quite sometime but still had that Jasmine flavour to it. The satay sticks were tasty but odd as the huge chunks of chicken had been deep fried in batter before being speared and satay-ed. The prawn crackers were just okay. My companion's Chicken and sweet-corn soup was pronounced as very tasty. My short soup had half a dozen large wontons in it, which may be good value but I prefer a few smaller ones. They tend to be tastier. The Young Chow special fried rice had king prawns in and was tasty but the star of the meal was the sizzling BBQ combination (chicken, beef and king prawn). Very tasty, sizzling with just a bit of heat to my taste. Similar sauce to the Mongolian lamb which I quite like from here (although didn't order tonight). The prices were quite a bit higher than their takeaway menu - probably by about a third more. No corkage fees however. Still the best Chinese near my place. (Our waitress tonight was a young teenager whose comprehension was a bit lacking. I think she may have been fairly new as she seemed nervous - to the point she didn't want to pour the tea in case she spilt it! We took pity on her but marked them down accordingly.)

Only had takeaway from here but it is one of the better ones in the locality. (As such, I can only rate the service on their takeaway service. In-house dining could be different.) Rstaurant always smells nice and if you go on a Saturday night, there is always a fair amount of people waiting on takeaway.

Really didn't like their fried food but some of the other dishes, like the duck were quite tasty.

Would like to dine in and see what it is like. Standard Chinese restaurant decor.

I wouldn't suggest anyone drives any great distance to get there, but if you are local, you could do worse.