Great Chongqing — Restaurant in Bristol

Summary: good food with awful service, restaurant hygiene and bad experience on every single step. Other reviews which mentioned bad service are 100% correct. Take away food only.

Long story: I came to Great Chongqing with my partner on Friday evening. It was really nice weather with not that many people inside so we decided to try it this time this restaurant. When we came in, stuff (two) were looking at us for like 10 seconds and didn't say anything. We have been a bit confused at the beginning because we didn't know what to do but then they showed us a tablet which we could take. Tables were dirty a bit and we needed to wash them with paper tissues.

I went to bathroom to wash my hands and... oh... it was so bad experience. Everywhere bottles with oil, noodles and other stuff for kitchen. The smell was awful and started from the beginning of stairs (toilets are in the basement). Dirty water (and soil?) was on the ground everywhere and I felt terrible to even walk to the bathroom. There is label "ladies" and no label for male toilet so I needed to assume that I went to the good one (there were the door to laundry and other storage room - no sign that isn't for stuff only). Really chaotic layout.

Anyway... when I came back, we have ordered chicken and beef soup wheat noddles. Soups came really fast which was great! After that my partner realised that she got chicken, not: beef soup and she mentioned it back to stuff. Stuff after it was really unprofessional because she rolled up eyes and started yelling to the chefs in kitchen that hey messed up the order for us - it was a "bit" weird and I felt like there is a conflict between stuff at the front of restaurant and stuff from kitchen. After 5 minutes my partner got additional portion of beef to her soup.

Soups were tasty but the wheat noddles were not made handmade and they were a cheap factory quality which was disappointing. I felt the meat which we got in our soups was really small.

We asked stuff for the tap water. Stuff bring us back 1 small styrofoam cup with water... and bug inside. It was the first time when someone took just a small cup of water for us when we asked for the tap water and also failed it.

When I was chatting with my partner, I was at the same time observing stuff which was cleaning other tables after customers and I realised that they are not even wiping the table which was really gross.

It was such a weird and bad experience that I can't imagine that owner(s) of this restaurant are fine with that type of service! It's the worst which I ever got anywhere ever at any time! The price of each of our soup was nice (£9) but if on the other hand customers need to experience that service then maybe it's worth to invest in proper stuff which know what to do and have some...

My husband and I went to this place several times. The seasoning of the food is alright but inconsistent. The food may taste different each time even if the same food was ordered.

The chef clearly does not pay too much attention about the cooking time. There were two times when the food was clearly overcooked.

Once was a bowl of noodles which turned to be really mushy and clearly cooked for too long. We couldn't eat any of it but left the bowl untouched. No waiter/waitress attended us. We tried to tell them when we were getting the bill but the waiter seemed to not care about it at all.

Quite a while later after that unpleasant experience, we thought about trying the place again as we have had good experience with the place before. We ordered a beef dish and clearly the beef was overcooked again. The beef slices were so hard to chew and we could barely swallow. We left most of the beef untouched and no waiter attended us. The chicken dish we ordered was alright.

The tap water they offered had quite some floaters and tasted a bit funny.

It is still a good budget place to have some authentic Chinese food if one orders food that is less likely to be overcooked (like stewed food). Stay away from dishes which are more strict with cooking time. They don't charge any service fees for lunch time so I don't complain the services...

One of the best Chinese restaurants in Bristol, the portion sizes are crazy big, the spice is very hot hit harder than I thought when I first had it, the experience was really good first time and have been coming back weekly its that good. Food comes within minutes it is so rapid I am surprised. The staff has changed since I first went there and it has not been as good, would have been a 5 star if there was not a change in staff, one lady asked my black girlfriend if she used a fork but gave me (chinese) chopsticks, this is actually quite insulting and the old staff never did this. Another down side is that the new staff are so keen on making you pay cash, maybe for tax avoiding reasons but i dont care, a little annoying just say you only have apple pay and they'll whip out a card reader.

Had a recent visit as this place is a bit weird for cards they now have added a 10% fee if you want to pay by card. Not good dropped down from...