Beijing Da Dong — Restaurant in Beijing

After having read the other comments, I had some good expectations of the food at Da Dong. Sure, it tasted decent and the food certainly looked even better, unfortunately the service was lacking what you'd expect for this sort of calibre of restaurant.

For starters, we wasted ages looking through their 200 page menu trying to work out what to order. Then we tried to order, flicking through the hundreds of pages of the menu, while the waitress yawned at us looking like this was the last place she wanted to be. Actually most of the waitresses looked a little tired and overall lacked any sort of enthusiasm. I guess their mood kind of rubbed off on my impression of the food.

Next, I tried to order one of their long list of beers. Sorry they only had a couple of them... boring old Tsing Tao which doesn't even taste like a beer should. Why would you list a whole bunch of drinks on your menu if you don't plan to stock any of them? Sorry but that is not good enough for a restaurant like this, what a let down.

Fortunately, the food itself is the redeeming feature of this restaurant - it actually tastes pretty good and looks brilliant. A chef came out to carve the duck at our table, which was an interesting little bit of show. The skin and texture of the duck was exceptional and I doubt you can find better. Too bad the taste itself isn't as good as some of the duck I've had back in Sydney. Oh well, still pretty good and worth a try!

I would recommend eating here, but don't expect anything from the service at all. Also, expect to be surrounded by foreigners (I...

Tonight my colleagues and I went to Da Dong for dinner. We had 6 people in our group. 4 people in our group were interested in getting the duck, however, one of my colleagues and I decided to get individual orders of rice and dumplings to save some money without having to separate from our group. The employees had taken complete advantage of our group. They brought 2 pots of rice (12 servings) and charged us when we had asked for 2 servings. The server was made clear of this and understood what we had asked for. When we told the server that only two people wanted servings of rice we were ignored and charged 116 RMB instead of the 12 RMB we had intended on spending. The server also decided to order 2 side dishes (which included duck seasonings, bread, etc.) even though we did not order it. We told the server that we did not want the side dishes and were told that we could not enjoy the duck without the sides and were charged additionally for that as well. When I had asked for a regular glass of water I was brought and charged 80 RMB for the most expensive water on the menu. I ended up having to spend 200 RMB (of my portion) for water, sub-par dumplings, and soggy rice. I am extremely disappointed with the service and treatment...

The meal was average - I had the duck with pancakes since it's meant to be their speciality. It was fine, but very overrated, nothing to write home about, and it cost 350 RMB (or about £32) per person. The service was slow, I went on Monday evening and the restaurant was half empty, but it took them about 25 mins to take my order. I had a reasonable evening, until I was putting on my coat to leave and accidentally knocked a tiny glass bauble decoration off a tree. I apologised and even helped to clean it up. As I was walking out the restaurant, after having paid my bill of £60, the staff ran up to me and demanded that I pay £20 for the bauble that I had accidentally broken. I was completely embarrassed and offended, and naturally I refused to pay for it. The staff were aggressive and rude, and insisted that I pay for the broken trinket several times. I was pretty upset and explained that I wasn't prepared to pay for it. Eventually they 'allowed' me to leave. It was a horrible experience, and ruined what was I could have only described as an average meal at best anyway. Despite the terrible service, I would not have left a great review for the food here either. My advice is to save your money and look for...