Moon River Chinese Sea Food Restaurant — Restaurant in Colombo

What a nice place to have an authentic Chinese meal.

Not much parking space and so sometimes you might have to put down your tempura prawn and get up from the table to move your car away from another vehicle.

There's a nice waiting area with huge fish in big glass tanks and a plush sofa to fall asleep on. Thankfully, there's not much of a wait. Inside the main color is yellow and everything looks super clean, neat and tidy.

But a curtained off counter revealed a dirty, pock marked sort of wall (when the curtain swish-swashed) which might have been an extension of their kitchen and this didn't give a good impression to the restaurant's cleanliness. A fresh coat of paint would solve this problem (hopefully).

There are local and oriental stewards/stewardesses to take down your order and serve your meal with good practice.

There are large, illustrated menus that are heavier than a large (live) garoupa but be careful when ordering.

Check whether the prices are for a portion or gram weight (especially fish and crab dishes) or you could have a heart attack when you get the bill. The soft drinks especially are overpriced and not worth it (then again this is the case in most upscale restaurants). The pricing of food is also a tad bit too high.

Also, don't expect the same good looking dish that is depicted in the menu to materialize in front of you (after being served by the waiter). The real thing tends to be less colorful and less in quantity.

The mixed seafood rice was an absolute treat. Delicately flavored, fluffy textures and subtle taste are some of the descriptions that come to mind and not much to be encountered at other similar restaurants.

The pork was not so enticing as the quantity of the meat itself was unfair and not worth the price.

Another not so good thing would be their dishes having too much peanuts. These are welcome in small quantities but our pork dish could easily have been mistaken for a peanut dish. Too much peanuts!!

Everything else was good and I will definitely visit them again for a...

I WILL DEFINITELY AVOID THIS UNFRIENDLY, UNSANITARY PLACE. The customer service was utterly disgusting. When we entered, the man who was in front didn’t greet us. He just asked how many. I said two. After sitting down, another guy comes and takes our order. He was a small made guy. And was somewhat friendly. Then the previous big made guy brings the soup and slams the ceramic cups loudly on to the table with an annoying attitude. He was not at all friendly. Didn’t have a smile on his face even if his life depended on it. Then I saw this same big guy, getting ice cubes into a glass for some other customer. He gets the ice cube bag from the freezer and dashes it on the dirty, filthy floor and picks it up and opens it with his bare hands and takes the ice cubes without any tongues or with gloves on and puts them into the glass, touching them with his dirty fingers.. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I will never ever go back to this filthy restaurant no matter how hungry I get. The boss guy too didn’t have a smile on his face. He looked like he too had an attitude. When we were leaving, the boss guy was sitting at the front entrance by the big blue aquariums. He didn’t even say goodbye or good night to us. Didn’t ask us how was our dinner experience, nothing. And we call this country a tourist heaven. A country with hospitality. What a joke. This is all because, LACK...

Everyone knows that this place is fairly expensive, but the problem is quality and quantity of food. Seafood fried rice was ok but the portions were fairly small and other dishes were noticeably very low in salt as if in a diet for patients with severe hypertension, and tasting bland. Some pundit may say 'Oh this is how authentic Chinese cuisine tastes', he must try any Chinese restaurant in a five star hotel in Colombo city. Hot butter cuttlefish was unremarkable, they wanted to offer 'devilled cuttlefish heads' instead of cuttlefish which we declined for obvious reasons. Devilled chicken contained much more bell pepper than tiny pieces of chicken. Devilled pork appeared to have been cooked many times. Ambience was a little more than that of a Chinese kade in a remote suburban area, though there were some VIP room rooms. There is a very small parking space at the entrance to the premises.This place is...