Taohua Restaurant — Restaurant in East Staffordshire

We don’t get many chances to go out so it’s a rare treat for us, with this being said we wanted to try something new. We were definitely drawn in by all the positive reviews so felt quite excited, however we were left extremely disappointed and quite confused about all the 5* reviews.

I’ll start with the few positives. The cocktails were tasty, the environment was lovely, and the young male staff were friendly and attentive.

I’m not sure if it’s because our table was at 9 and the staff were in a rush to close or if the food is always like this but it was absolutely terrible. The chicken was SO dry and just slathered in an overwhelmingly rich sauce, almost the mask the dryness. The only good thing were the dim sum but an absolute rip off as all you get are 4 tiny dumplings for over £10. The beef udon was tasteless and dry. Additionally, we ordered the salt and pepper chips, they arrived in a tiny basket with a pathetic little bit of spring onion and a chilli on-top… no taste or seasoning, so basically a tiny basket of normal chips. We complained about these and the woman returned to tell us that the kitchen tried them and that they did have taste. So after this we just felt uncomfortable being honest to the staff about how we truly felt about our food and overall experience. My husband hadn’t eaten all day so he just ate both of our meals since he was so hungry- otherwise we would’ve just left everything. We felt incredibly awkward and disappointed. If this has taught us anything it’s to stick with the restaurants we know are good and not to trust 5* reviews.

Stick to your local Chinese takeaway and you won’t be...

Well, we couldn't be more disappointed with this restaurant after hearing and reading good reviews. We were are party of 8 and we're all really looking forward to eating here, our excitement was soon brought down to earth, please see our reasons below: The starters were OK, but nothing better than your average local Chinese takeaway. The mains were where it got really disappointing, the chicken was dry, one of us had to wait another 5 minutes after everybody else had received their mains, the sirloin steak looked exactly like the other beef dish at half the price, what a waste of money. Oh and the Pak Choi was literally drowning in garlic to take any Pak Choi taste away, it was disgusting. Needless to say, we won't be revisiting this restaurant again, ever, don't waste your time, stay in and order a takeaway, it'll be...

This is supposed to be a restaurant that focuses on quality. It looks lovely when arriving with pretty flowers etc, but looking closer only our table had a tablecloth - the others were just bare. Staff fairly attentive to start, even attempting to remove a dish before we had finished with it. There was no water on the table and none was offered. The menu looked appealing, but when we actually finished our food it didn’t live up to the promises of the menu. We were asked if we wanted a dessert, we said we would try a cocktail instead … 15 minutes later and still no one took our order for it. So we paid up and left - the bar staff laughed when we said our experience had been terrible, what a strange way to...