The Welcome - Hong Kong Cuisine — Restaurant in Belfast

My wife and I dined here the other night. We were pleasantly surprised how good this place was because we know that good Chinese restaurants are hard to come by. We called to book a reservation with no problem. It’s street parking which, we have learned whilst in Belfast, isn’t the best. Thankfully we found a space not too far away. The restaurant itself is quite fancy looking. They have a cool ceiling. The place is of reasonable size with plenty of tables which are adequately spread apart so you don’t feel that you are too close to any neighbouring diners. The service was excellent. The two ladies that served us were on the ball. They were always busy but seemed to have everything under control. They were also very pleasant. Normally Chinese menus are exhausting to read through and it’s nearly impossible to decide. However this menu is a great size. It provides variety but it isn’t overwhelming. I was naughty and got 2 starters. I got the duck with pancakes and hoisin sauce and also the pork ribs with pecking sauce. Both of these were delicious. The duck came on the bone and the waitress shredded it upon serving. The duck came with 6 thin pancakes and the hoisin sauce was lovely. The pork ribs were indulgent. They came right off the bone and tasted amazing. This alone was probably enough for me but mains to come. My wife got vegetable spring rolls for starters which she enjoyed. The pastry was very sick and crispy. For mains my wife got chicken fried rice and curry sauce which is her go to Chinese dish. She thought it was tasty and a generous portion. I got Szechuan chicken which was nice along with chow mein. The chow mein was an enormous potion compared to the chicken which was quite small. For the table we had prawn crackers which were…well prawn crackers. I squeezed in some dessert. We shared deep fried ice cream which I’ve never had before. It was surprisingly good. The only 2 negatives was that the taps in the bathroom were only trickling out and the meal was expensive. It came to just under £80. Which for Chinese food standards is a lot. We did order a lot of food and it was all very tasty so can’t...

So I done the right thing and called the establishment to give my feedback rather than leave a review but I was met with passive aggressiveness and argumentative communication, so here I am....

Order was wrong but it stated on the docket it was correct so there was a miscommunication between me and the person whom took my order.

That's fine as I didn't really mind as it was just one main dish but what got me was the very poor quality of the food.

The chicken on the honey chilli chicken dish was stringy (like really over cooked calamari) it was also very greasy as if the frying oil wasn't hot enough and the sauce was sickly sweet, tasted like a desert and that goes the same for the sweet and sour chicken (I ordered curry but apparently I didn't....). Everything was also very under seasoned and bland.

The BBQ ribs were actually ok but very little meat. The spring rolls were just your standard bought in spring rolls but they tasted unusually fishy nearly like it was off.

The most amazing thing was the overcooked steamed rice?!? Come on guys, over cooked rice from a Chinese restaurant? Was it even washed before hand to remove the starch? Coming from a culture that's so dedicated and takes pride in creating amazing food this was shocking and I don't know what these awards are that this place has won? Are they made up?

£39.90 for a 'takeaway' sweet and sour chicken, honey chilli chicken, spring rolls, ribs, steamed rice and chips (sides are also charged separately btw which I don't mind if the food is worth it). Yes you get a 20% discount on the mains but still expensive.

Save your money and go elsewhere, I don't know where the positive reviews came from. If you want good customer service and food this isn't the place to be...

Served non-vegan food when I'd ordered vegan, told me it was non-vegan while I was eating, offered to replace it and then charged me twice for the non-vegan dish & the replacement, even after disputing.

Finally got my money back after calling up after but this was really badly handled, would not go back or recommend. Also paid 10% service charge added on to the bill for this poor service.

Most places wouldn't even charge for the original dish after a mistake like that, never mind for both. The only reason I agreed to the replacement dish was because they didn't alternatively offer my money back.

To be fair, since I'd already half eaten the non-vegan starter and I knew the rest was going in the bin (by law it has to), I said that my parents could finish it since they are non-vegan. I didn't want it to go to waste. But I don't think that justifies charging twice.

Apart from that, Waka or Macau are far nicer and far cheaper. Food was really average for the price....