Charlie Chan Restaurant — Restaurant in Cambridge

To give credit where it's due my partner, who had a prawn dish and my son who had sweet and sour pork, both enjoyed their meals and thought the food was fine. Quantity was also okay and two portions of egg fried rice were quite adequate for the three of us. However, the service was absolutely appalling. The dishes were brought over separately and just dumped on the table without any acknowledgement or explanation of what they were; and certainly not even a smile of any sort. Also, and although to be fair I don't normally expect a wide variety of choice in many eating establishments being a vegetarian, I was totally surprised by the fact that they didn't have a single none meat or fish dish on the menu. Even under the vegetable section, the pot of tofu and vegetables were normally cooked in chicken stock, so the waiter had to request them not to be specifically, which made the resulting dish rather bland. The atmosphere was neither here nor there as far as I was concerned, it was an okay place to eat and the jasmine tea was fine, but the final insult to injury was the 17.5% service charge added to the bill. At best I might have given them 5% for the one nice member of staff who was quite pleasant and friendly. As a vegetarian I'd obviously not eat there again, as a customer I'd equally not wish to get such rude service, especially from one particular member of the serving staff. It was shockingly unbelievable in this day and age to have a plate of food dumped on our table of three without any explanation or acknowledgement of our presence and for them to simply wander off leaving us to work out who it was for whilst waiting for the remaining dishes which were brought out separately. I'm trying to think of a suitable analogy, but their total lack of emotional interest or presence really defies much comparison for someone working in the service industry. I'm still feeling a bit shell shocked thinking about it as I write this review. At least it came quickly as we...

The food didn't taste terrible which is why this has two stars. However, we ordered the Singapore-style Hor Fun and there was nothing Singaporean about it. It had tumeric in it strangely for Hor Fun and was dry. Again, wasn't terrible, very average and they should change the name.

The reason why the rating is so low is also cause of the terrible service. Came in when it was still empty. We asked if they could seat us and they said yes but proceeded to forget to put in our orders and only realize 25min after when we asked, didn't answer our questions when we asked but ran off to try and fix the mistake without letting us know that our order hadn't been placed. By this point we were already severely delayed and would have to rush to catch our train. Had we known, we would have cancelled the order and left. They managed to rush the order, which I guess shows in the food quality. We asked for the bill after gobbling down our food and that took so long too because the person holding the machine kept getting distracted by people waiting. And when we asked if she could split the bill, she didn't acknowledge us. We had to ask for a receipt to ensure that it had been split. Didn't even acknowledge my friend's thank you.

Overall I will say you're better off trying any of the other Asian restaurants along the same row. Unless you're really looking for something that only this restaurant can provide, I'd say try...

We used to love the place as a family. But the last experience w/ my son who has autism made the dining experience a nightmare. Thus we never got back to this resto ( I won’t recommend this to people who are neurodivergent/ people with disabilities). The staff told us off re my son having a noise (he was just making excited noise and was laughing from what he was watching to calm him down). She further said that the customer behind us left because of us but there was never a complain directly from the people behind us who were just eating and chatting. She further said people does not like noise but the other people on the table were speaking & laughing loudly than my son who is just 4 years old! I could have worn theSunflower lanyard for my son to let people know his disability but I never had to do it since people in Cambridge are generally nice until that staff told us such bad comment. We could have just left but we already ordered & we are not that mean to not pay for it (so we just ate in disgust & hurried out after paying). I also explained my sin’s situation so at least next time they can accommodate nicely people w/ different abilities/...