Der Chinese am Fleet — Restaurant in Hamburg

Quintessence:

Probably the best Chinese restaurant in Hamburg that offers Hunan/Sichuan cuisine. I would recommend ordering dishes from their first four pages, as these dishes are very authentic. If you like Chinese food that appeals more to a western taste, you will find something too. In addition, you should make a reservation if you want to go there for dinner.

In detail:

My friends and I made a reservation prior to dining at Der Chinese am Fleet. We arrived at around 7pm ish and got our table straight away. The restaurant itself has a very clean and puristic look and the furnishing is very simple. There are not so many tables inside, so I would definitely recommend making a reservation, otherwise you might have to wait for a table. They do have outdoor seating though where you can sit on a sunny day.

So, this restaurant has two different kind of menus. The first menu (four pages) is at the beginning of the menu booklet and has all those authentic Hunan and Sichuan style dishes on it. And the rest of the dishes are also Chinese, but they are made to appeal more to a western taste. The menu is written in Chinese and German. The chili symbol next to the name of the dish indicates how spicy the dish is, but you can always ask them to cook it less spicy, if needed.

We ordered the smashed cucumbers with garlic (蒜泥泊黃瓜), the sweet and sour pork ribs (糖醋排骨), the fried water spinach (空心菜), the sour and spicy marinated potato julienne (醋溜土豆丝), and the stewed aubergines with minced meat (茄子煲). The dishes were served step by step, which was totally fine, as people share dishes in most parts of Asia, and you don’t order a dish for yourself. All dishes were very delicious, authentic, they were served hot, and they were accompanied with a bowl of plain jasmine rice. Of course, the dishes need a certain amount of oil when they are fried in a wok to prevent them from burning or sticking to the wok. That doesn’t make the dishes less authentic though. We were four people in total and ordered five dishes from the menu, and we asked for a refill of rice. That amount of food was quite right for us.

That day there was one waiter who took the orders and served food and a food runner. The service was friendly and very polite, and they worked quite well together.

The prices for their dishes are quite reasonable. You can’t expect them to have fancier furniture or extraordinary service regarding the prices. I would definitely recommend eating there, if you like authentic Chinese food in particular western Chinese cuisine...

Updated review: The soup plastic package melts away because of other Styrofoam packages within 20 mins after we took the food from the restaurant to our home. My husband also receives some mild stomachache after eating this meal. Since then we haven't eaten from this restaurant yet. The restaurant is currently open for takeout and delivery from 30€. Food is prepared pretty fast, only 10-15 minutes and are well packaged. 🍛 Food in general is quite good for such a quiet area in terms of cuisine Hamm/Horn. The dish T8 is so full of umami thanks to the fermented bean sauce, which they didn't use sparing at all. The beef is so soft and smoky thanks to the wok and onion is crunchy. Um, just mouth watering. It is said to be mild spicy, but not spicy at all (according to my taste). 🍱 On the takeout menu there is not section "C". However we tried C9, a tofu with pork and mushroom dish in Jiachang style. It was good but a bit salty and not as mind-blowing as the T8. 🍚 The spicy-sour soup can be a delight for people who prefer sour taste. It is however not soucy at all. The rice is the only disappointment in this order as it is dry and seems to be scooped up from yesterday, which I totally understand in this Corona situation. However the grains themselves are also not fragrant and has no significant taste to it. They just simply act as a side kick for other stunning dishes here. ♥️ Overall: Highly recommended. I look forward to coming back here and taste their hot plate dishes. 🔥 Tip: in the extra menu with section C,...

We are not a big friend of spicy food and we know that Hunan cuisine is spicy but was looking for heart and body warming Chinese food on a cold and wet evening. Ordered a tofu which is marked with 1 chilly and a pork with preserved vegetable (no chilly), turned out the pork is more spicy than the tofu. Though not expected but good to go with beer. The pork was disappointing as it was pre-cooked for quite some time (days I meant), so the skin and outside dried up. They probably steamed it again and put some sauce over it. Due to time constraint, I can understand they can't cook it on the spot but have to prepare the meat in advance. However I would expected them to braise the pork with the preserved vegetable so that gIns flavour of each other. Having said that, this is probably not a popular dish and I am not sure if they have such dish in Hunan. It is a popular Hakka dish. All in all, the food is tasty with generous serving of...