Swallow — Restaurant in England

There it was in front of me; £47 of chinese...it had to be good! Fillet steak in green pepper and black bean sauce (£11!), szechuan chicken, special chow mein and special fried rice. So much build-up and anticipation...I even ignored the fact that the special fried rice had no special stuff and was anaemic with blatantly minimal soy sauce....

The first bite....??? A second bite...??? Have I got covid?

I genuinely though my taste buds had stopped working. I could see the colours but no taste at all. I definitely don't have covid but I did wonder at that moment. No need to worry though because I could taste the mass bought prawn crackers with their suspiciously symmetrical shape. I could also taste the The szechuan chicken....a taste like sugar with no chilli...but I could still taste at least. I do feel sorry for the destiny of that lovely fillet steak though...a destiny of a dirty bath of 'not' black bean sauce.

Swallow is definitely apt for a restaurant that serves food with no taste, because my meal was a mechanical process with no enjoyment at all and definitely over priced. I do wonder if, as it was a take away, less effort was applied.

I look forward to going somewhere...

Visited the Swallow last night, had a look at the menu online and set out for a meal having chosen what I'd be eating! Arrived at the restaurant to notice the menu in the restaurant was different to the online one in regards to prices.Im not just talking a quid difference here and there I'm talking about a £5 difference on a portion of chow mein noodles. Absolute day light robbery and extremely misleading in my opinion as they should make it clear of the price differences between eating in and taking out! Our bill came to £62 for two starters and 2 mains and a coke each , having ordered the exact same as a take out it would have only cost £38 , how is this possible?? The food we eat was nice but it is only a Chinese afterall not fine dining,shouldn't be...

Great service and friendly staff, can’t really comment on atmosphere as we had a take away but the restaurant looked really nice. We have mixed reviews on the food, I loved my crispy chilli beef and egg fried rice, that was perfect but my partner found his food rather bland (mixed meat and rice box) and we both didn’t rate the salt and pepper ribs sadly. Lacking flavour. We also had to reheat the food when we got home as it wasn’t hot. (We were staying a couple of minutes drive away). Not a huge issue but still. Despite all of this the cost of the food was very reasonable compared to what we pay...