Asianista Darlington — Restaurant in England

We look to be in the minority here based on majority of other reviews so maybe we were just unlucky but staff apparently couldn’t (didn’t even try to) accommodate an extra 2 people for our booking tonight despite the place being pretty empty for the duration of our visit (and plenty of space / empty tables around us all evening).

Strangely we had to request plates, cutlery etc for every course (would have thought they were a given) and the upstairs area was absolutely freezing - everybody sat with jackets or blankets on. Possibly a result of the arctic conditions, but some of the starters were also cold on arrival.

Food otherwise was half decent but customer service leaves a lot to be desired.

** In response to your below reply, we actually called at 5pm (almost an hour and a half before our booking) but appreciate this is short notice, so no issue that you were not able to accommodate our request - my point was more to do with the attitude of your staff on the phone and the fact you didn't even try - it was an immediate and very short "No sorry, we are fully booked".

Given how much space there was and how many empty / spare tables were not being used, it would (in my opinion) have been very easy to add another 2 guests but its fine, just wanted to share the feedback and maybe your staff can "try" to go the extra mile (inch in this case) for their...

This place is lucky google review won’t allow less than one star. Absolutely shocking place and service, one of our dishes came out - chips to go with it were never to be seen. We ordered a platter between two of us, waited 20 minutes for the starter and then continued to wait another hour for our mains. When they decided to bring them out it wasn’t even what we had ordered, however we decided we to just eat anyway as we’d been waiting an hour and a half so far. A couple of minutes later the waiter came back out and said he was taking it away as it wasn’t ours, even though we were in the middle of eating it. He apologised and said our food was ready right now and he was bringing it out. 25 minutes later still no food. At the end we decided to just leave, and to top it off they still had the balls to charge us £36 for one pad thai and a starter.

Absolutely shocking service wouldn’t...

It is so nice to have an East Asian styled place to eat at again. The atmosphere is great with how lovely the decor is. The staff are friendly and helpful. And the best bit is the food. I've only really experienced the all-you-can-eat menu so I can't speak for the dishes not on there, but everything is so delicious and flavorful! (The salt and pepper ribs are a memorable highlight. Can never get enough of those.) And the servings are so nicely sized that it means you can attempt to sample quite a bit of the menu on your visit with minimal amount of waste possible. The cocktails are also fun and the desert menu has some lovely choices.

It's wonderful going here with family and friends whenever can. If I could I'd be there on the regular. There's just not many places in Darlo that reach my expectation of such good food. It is well worth the price...