The Sapphire Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Inverell

Appalling service today (28/12/2023). There were 4 of us dining & we arrived at 12.15pm. The waitress offered drinks quickly, but these were slow to be received. The waitress did not take our order for some time after delivering our drinks. The order was repeated back to us which was good. Our order was 2 mixed entrees & 6 steamed dim sims. We ordered a large special fried rice to share then we each ordered a main (not to share). Mains were Combination Mongolian, Honey chicken, Sweet & sour pork & Braised beef with vegetables. We then waited a long time for entrees to be delivered, but they did come in quick succession. We then waited nearly an hour before we received the rice & honey chicken (neither were very hot). The sweet & sour pork was received next (not very hot). During our wait we observed a staff member leave & then return with a trolley of vegetables which they had purchased at Coles across the road. The waitress then came out & advised that they had run out of beef. So the braised beef & vegetables was changed to chicken & vegetables. The two of us who had not been served had some rice & waited. The Combination Mongolian came next & it was very hot. At that stage it was obvious that they had not started cooking the 4th main. Other customers who entered after us were served. Some other customers were also asked to change their order since they had also run out of pork. The 3 of us who had received our meals had finished eating before the final main arrived. When the chicken & vegetables arrived the vegetables were not cooked & there was not much chicken. By this time the fried rice was cold. During this time I observed 2 customers order takeaway who also had to wait more than 30 minutes to receive their meal. During the time we were there a wooden board to be used as a ramp was taken out so a person in a wheelchair could enter. The ramp was quite steep (not regulation) and not attached to the step, so a trip hazard for people walking past. This ramp was unsafe & moved, the 2 elderly people in our group had great difficulty trying to exit due to the ramp being too steep to walk down & they were unable to step over it. I do not recommend this restaurant & will...

I’m sorry to give a bad review as the old lady was lovely. In fact I had to keep checking that there wasn’t two restaurants with the same name when I saw the number of people who had given 5 stars. We eat Chinese/Asian food on a regular basis and travel regularly both interstate and international but I have to say we all agreed this was the worst Chinese we have ever had. The chicken was just boiled chicken with no flavour in fact I thought it was a boiled chicken dim sim on my plate at first there was no sauce it was supposed to be garlic chicken with veg there was no taste of garlic and the veg was bland and tinned mushrooms see photo so you can see that they aren’t fresh from coles as owner states below. The fried rice had no taste at all. The only thing that had taste was the prawn crackers they tasted of grease and the veg spring rolls that were tasteless apart from vinegar that’s all you could taste. I’m sorry but never again. ETA: Added photo which shows tinned mushrooms I can even take the meal out of the bin if you would like and take more. It was definitely your restaurant it was $40 at...

Very disappointing experience. My husband and I come from the Inverell area and came to Inverell with our friends to show them the qualities of our home town. We also had some of our family from Inverell with us. Between the 6 of us we ordered drinks, entrees & main meals. Two of us had our entrees eaten with no more to be seen. We had to ask for the other four entrees, which were only prawn cocktails, so didn't need any cooking. We had ordered 4 main meals and a fried rice. 3 main meals arrived, almost eaten we had to ask for our rice and remaining dish. We had also ordered water which we also had to remind them about. Our disappointment was discussed with the manageress who was only slightly apologetic and had no hesitation in charging us full price for our meal. Unfortunately we were not the only ones in the restaurant that night that were...