Nan Yuan Cantonese Restaurant — Restaurant in Floriana

High Expectations & Mediocre Product

So where to begin... First of all before I get into this I would like to say by no means is the service bad when it comes to pleasantries, that said the experience outside of the actual food was really pretty nice. The owner is experienced in hospitality and it shows. The menus are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Simply browsing through the seemingly delectable meal options was probably one of the highlights. Boasting large high definition images of gourmet Cantonese cuisine which would entice even the pickiest eaters appetite. Now on with the travesty! Once finished perusing the many options offered it was decided to take the set menu as there were too many options to choose one. Due to the location of the resteraunt the prices were extremely high. Nonetheless we chose two set menus (cantonese) this comes several tasty sounding dishes including pineapple duck (which we did not receive) and what should have been Black Tiger Prawns sauteed in a Cantonese style garlic sauce. Let's begin with the worst first. The first bite of the shrimp immediately set the tone for the entire meal. The shrimp tasted of ammonia on the first bite. Being a seafood lover I am very conscious about the freshness of shrimp. This shrimp was not only frozen before it had also gone through the early stages of decomposition giving it a very bad taste and smell. In essence bad shrimp... fortunately I was able to recognize this and quickly pushed them aside. As I was hungry I continued to try the nearly flavorless yet expensive almond chicken which was by no means worth the plate it was served on. The "special rice" was basic at best but edible. By the end of the meal we still had 90% of the food we ordered on the table. We decided to pay and leave at this point but felt compelled to let the owner know that the shrimp served had gone bad. The gentleman being quite proud tried to convince us that they were fresh and it was simply the way the shrimp was prepared which through our amateur taste buds off. We didn't push the topic further. Once we were ready to go my gf became I'll and asked for the bathroom in which she puked the entire meal into the toilet. I won't say the resteraunts is bad but the food is lacking the flair that the resteraunts ambience implies it will. On a side note, the best part of everything were the delicious appetizers which were very fresh and believe it or not hand made. The location is beautiful and our seating was romantic and well placed right next to the water with a great view of the marina. My final verdict is attend at your own risk and be sure to avoid the prawns, lest food...

It all started with my kids could not stand Western food anymore. First night passing by, didn't make a booking, the staff told us that we need to wait for a while coz it was peak hour. Well understood and we waited for about 15mins and left. 2nd night we made a reservation in advance as we thought the food must be great if it was so busy, we were so wrong... We waited 20mins just sitting there for being served and taking order, after that another 50 mins or so for the first dish to be on the table, if only the food was good these are all bearable however it was simply not. The food was way below average if not horrible, you had a chance if you randomly walk into a restaurant in Hong Kong or Shanghai and the food would be better. Maybe it suits the tastes of the Maltese? However by Chinese standard I'll give it a 2 or 3 in a scale of 0-10, and the service 3-4 maybe.

However I have to admit the fact that the restaurant was very busy on the Sat night, which is very confusing to me.

Overall a 4 out of 10 would be more than justifiable. If you are from China or Hong Kong, definitely not...

We came here on a Saturday night, the restaurant was busy. So was the server, who could only get our order after over 20 minutes. (Maybe they were understaffed). We then waited over an hour for our food and our starters only came once the mains had already arrived. I chose V7, fried tofu with chili sauce. The tofu was good but the chili sauce it was served with was more like a small amount of dipping sauce and probably store bought. As any other main course, I wanted to eat it with rice but there was no sauce to eat the plain rice with. Speaking of the rice, it had a strange rubber like texture. The sweet and sour chicken was okay but had raw onions in it.

The owner was friendly but one of the servers straight up ignored me when I wanted to ask for more sauce.

Overall a really disappointing dining experience. I would not recommend to go here, especially not on a...