Pagoda Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Queensland

My family and I frequent Chinese restaurants and were in the mood to try a new joint, utterly disappointed at the food we’d received. Mongolian lamb with meat that looked, felt and tasted like it had been boiled, with flavour that seemed to be whispered at the food in place of seasoning it. The garlic chicken tasted just off, something about it was just plain wrong, I’m unsure how garlic chicken littered with garlic tasted of anything but… The special fried rice again was nothing like any special fried rice ever, and had the taste and consistency of microwaved packaged rice from woolies …

Everything seems to be microwaved or boiled absolutely gutted at what we thought looked like a nice place with good atmosphere to be served food like that at the price it is…

We were surprised about the speed at which the food was given even though the place looked pretty packed.. apparently that wasn’t a good thing as we...

The food was fresh and well cooked. It is a shame that the style of cooking and flavours were reminiscent of what the Chinese served up to Australians in the last century. The Australian palate and appreciation of food has much evolved and it would be great to see this restaurant evolve its flavours to more accurately reflect the real flavours of China.

Many dishes were coated in cornflour thickened sauce. Broccoli was the only vegetable option - not a piece of bok choy, kai lan, or choi sum in sight - disappointing when these basic chinese vegetables are so readily available in supermarkets these days. Braised duck with mushroom was roasted duck coated in thick sauce, with a few shitake mushrooms, mini corn, carrot and cucumber thrown in for colour.

In such a small town with so very few good eating establishments, the Pagoda should be a stand out. Sadly,...

NOTE: this review pertains to the takeaway, not the restaurant, which appear to be separate but operating under the same name, in the same building! I bought Honey king prawns, lemon chicken and combination fried rice for $58. I could have prepared the whole meal, in my own microwave for $10 max. The lemon chicken was reheated, crumbed chicken fingers you get from the frozen section of the supermarket, with a drizzle of lemon sauce that did nothing but make the crumb soggy. Tasteless, tough and unappealing. Honey king prawns were, again, crumbed supermarket frozen style, with almost no honey sauce. The combo fried rice was little more than reheated steamed rice with a few veges…no meat, egg or flavour - definitely not fried. Really poor!...