Lee's Kitchen — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

A few months ago, I wrote a positive Google review after the manager encouraged me to do so. I mentioned the pork dish was tasty. I genuinely wanted to support this restaurant and share a good experience. I don’t usually write negative reviews, but after two disappointing visits, I feel I owe it to other customers to share honestly—this restaurant has completely lost my goodwill.

We ordered three dishes and waited an hour. The stir-fried Keow Teow came out bright yellow with a strong curry flavour (horrible), even though the menu didn’t mention curry at all. When we politely asked if it was the wrong dish, the lady insisted she had told us about the curry—which we have no memory of—and she claimed there were different versions of Keow Teow, even though the menu clearly lists only one. The photo on your own Google listing also looks completely different.

This wasn’t the first unpleasant experience either. On a previous visit, the same lady told us our food would take longer because we were regulars. That was baffling. We were loyal customers simply because we wanted to support a fellow Chinese business—not to receive “special treatment” or be spoken to rudely.

We weren’t looking for trouble or making any demands—we didn’t ask for anything. What we hoped to hear was just that simple: “We’ll pay more attention next time.” Instead, we were made to feel like we were at fault.

We won’t...

Arrived around 7pm, trying to order some takeaway but was told need prolong wait due to backlog of orders. Decided to dine in to be able to eat earlier, staff was helpful to explain dishes to be ordered and explained clearly about the ingredients of the dishes. Unexpectedly the soup (mushroom & shreded duck soup they recomeneded) came quickly and this has quenched our hunger a bit. The rest of the order come in minutes and we started to dig in. The Salt & Pepper Eggplant was crunchy outside but soft inside with fried shredded onion that added more flavour to a fuller taste. The Crispy Tofu with Salt Egg Yolk was made into small dices to enhance the flavour by increasing the surface area to be covered with salt egg yolk fully. The Stewed Beef Hot Pot gave a balanced flavour by means of the sauce balanced with plenty of vegetables. The Saute'd String Bean with Dry Shrimps & Soy Sauce was lovely, with the beans cooked to the right softness, balance with minced pork, shrimp and sauce. All of us loved this dish very much. Overall all dishes were in large portions (they prompted us) and we ended up with three takeawat boxes that lasted for our next meals. We definitely will return again and highly recommended for all...

This place used to be our families favourite place to eat haven’t been here for a couple of months as we live in Sydney, we have family that lives in Maitland that we visit on the regular basis and of course we have been eating here quite regularly until tonight we arrived at 6:35 pm. Ordered basic for meals 55 minutes later. Still no food. The food is flying out the door but all takeaway Uber eats first priority I guess but still no good for all the other families sitting down waiting for their meal, we make the effort to come in to the restaurant to support the business and instead have to waste 1 hour of our time. Terrible Service 1 hours wait for some boiled rice and a few basic meals that’ shouldn’t take more than 10 mins to cook. I highly recommend you ask how long the food will take to come out before paying. Very disappointed I wasted 1 hour of my time. Asked about our order numerous times. And after that I was pretty much forced to ask for a refund because there was no communication on what was happening and food still continued coming out for takeaway. End up at GYG where the service is...