Huayuan — Restaurant in Bern

The food we ordered is authentic Chinese food. 水煮牛肉 is a beef dish boiled with chilli and oil. It was spicy, oily, and delicious. I had to drain off some oil before eating it. I would recommend service staff to ask customers of their preference for less oil as some customers can deem excessive oil to be unhealthy. However, the use of oil is truly authentic when compared to Sichuan cooking standards that I have tasted previously. 麻辣香锅 was delicious when prawns were wok fried with oil and chilli. 卤鸭 is a braised duck dish that was fragrant with the savoury duck and braised sauce.

Total price was 105 CHF. Each dish was on average 31 CHF but we ordered three bowls of rice at 3 CHF each and tap water was at 2 CHF. I can only say that one bowl of rice at 3 CHF is the same price I have seen in a restaurant in another city and tap water was chargeable as we did not order other drinks.

3 of us are Chinese speaking customers who ordered and sat outside as it was more cooling outside. Decoration was nice inside but the air can be quite hot and stuffy during summer.

Service staff are friendly but a kitchen staff bellowed at me in Chinese as it was confusing heading out from the toilet to the dining area as the exit from the toilet area naturally led straight to the kitchen. I recommend the boss to put an exit sign for customers to turn left to the dining area and not head straight into the kitchen.

Overall, it was a rare gem to find such an authentic Chinese restaurant situated around 5 - 10 tram stops away from Bern Train Station but found within the residential areas.

Despite high prices ie 31 CHF per dish but food is worth the money considering they are meat or seafood and cooked in an authentic manner. A common debate would be the prawn dish is considered smaller to the beef dish and the duck dish but I would say a fair comparison must be made as prawns i.e. seafood tend to be higher in cost as compared to meat.

Likewise, I ensured a positive experience based on the selection of high protein meat and seafood dishes as my experience would have been different if I ordered Mapo Tofu as it is a common challenge amongst restaurants for the tofu to be soft and silky while soaking in the spicy and savoury mapo sauce. So readers need to take this review with a pinch of salt and choose authentic chinese dishes to cater to your preference and adjust to your taste buds. Eating 重口味 ie strong flavoured food is not a liking that can be...

Can't understand why people rate this place good. Maybe they all blindly follow the gault millau recommendation. Maybe the gault millau guide is somehow related to the restaurant or it was the internship guy!

The food was really bad and soo much glutamat, that my mouth did hurt afterwards.

We ordered the duck and it was rubbery and lean meat. The skin super fatty not crunchy and no seasoning at all. Even Suan long has the way better duck and this is just a cheap restaurant chain. The fried eggplant and mapo tofu were swimming in oil and had no extra love and tasted like store bought already preapared sauce. The spicy beef was the only ok dish but the meat had soo much tenderizer and it was swimming for sure in 2dl oil, so it was quite unpleasant as well.

Most annoying was also the timing and service. After 30min one orderer dish of the friend came and the rest of the table had to wait. After 1h slowly also not at once the rest of the order arrived and we couldn't eat together cause every dish came with a long time inbetween.When everyone was already finished with eating after 1h my dish came and when I said I waited over 1h there was no apology. They simply asked if they should bring away the dish again.

Before we orderer the bill they offered a free coffee for the long waiting time cause they noticed we were angry. We didn't take it but at least one soft drink got cancelled from the bill. Positiv was only the nice deco of the house the service experience was horrible and the food was really bad and for sure not good for your health.

Stay...

If you are lucky, you'll get a table. A Restaurant with a lot of chinese tourist ( all come in travel bus). They all have priority. Kind of pitty to ignore most of local customers, even restaurant is kind of empty, there is a sign in front of the entrance saying " sorry we are fully booked"! The food is ok. Not cantonese cook though. Food is a wanna be cantonese and north China mixture....but is ok though, if the cook has time to cook for local customers.

10.07.2023

We sat down outside for 30 min., no service at all. Anyway, we found out that you have to call for service like they do in China. The food is OK, we enjoyed it. Don't expect they ask you for dessert, you have to ask for the dessert card and again call for service! Otherwise good luck sitting there expecting the waitress to come to you! It's summer, don't expect an air conditioner there. Inside the restaurant, the decorations are old and the table sticky. If you go there to eat, which I do suggest, don't forget to be active calling the waitress if you...