Watermargin Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in England

If I could give it Zero I would. We booked for the all you can eat menu, for which they ask for payment upfront due to circumstances beyond their control! Well I can certainly see why!

We arrived for our 7pm booking, we had to wait 20 mins for a drinks order to be taken. We then had a further wait for our appetiser order to be taken, we then waited 45 minutes to arrive. They gave the excuse that they were busy however there are only 10-15 tables in the whole restaurant and they only do one sitting a night! Once we had finished those we order a second round along with the crispy duck and 2 portions of soup. Well I'm still waiting for my Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup.

Once finishing the 2nd round of appetisers (you can only order 2 rounds) we sat for a further 45 mins to order the mains. At which point I physically had to get up and look for the 5 waiting staff who I found having a jolly in the entrance to the kitchen and requested that we ordered our mains to which the response was we didn't realise you hadn't! By this point a number of the tables had left and we were surrounded by tables covered in dirty dishes and leftovers which I also pointed out to the staff who were busy talking.

Eventually the mains arrived however yet again we were dishes missing and they came out so sparadic that by the time everything had arrived half of it had gone cold. The food was so salty you could actually see it heaped up in the bowls. Halfway through eating these we were asked if we wanted anymore as it was last orders on food, to which we pointed out it would be nice to able to finish eating what we had and that it was hardly fair considering the amount of time it had taken them to serve us! Apparently we had been given a grace period as they normally call last orders at 9pm but as we had been forgotten about and hadn't ordered until 8:50pm a concession was made.

The manager came to our table to 'apologise' but it was by no means sincere and gave us the drinks on the house, more to shut us up than it was an apology. All he could tell us that was that they were busy and a chef down. So busy the staff could stand around talking rather than serving. Ending his apology with you are entitled to our opinion and that you can't go to a restaurant without waiting over 2hrs for your food it's normal!

So if you want slow service with salty inedible food by all means try the all you can eat, but you have...

I wish I had gone to bed hungry. I feel like I have been bent over one of their many dirty tables, violated and splashed with whatever overly salty sauce they had spare.

We arrived as so many other places in town had closed. We were seated and waited for some time before deciding to fetch the menus ourselves. The waiter did apologise for this. In fact it seemed he apologised for something every time he approached us. Complimentary prawn crackers were delivered to our table with an unexplained brown sauce appearing on one of them. The waiter inspected this, asking "what is that?" before shrugging and walking off. There was no organisation and it appeared our waiter had little confidence by way of social interaction. When the food arrived at the table, my immediate thought was that there must be more to arrive. This was not the case.

The chicken satay skewers I ordered were sparse, were not cut before being placed on the skewers and the satay sauce was cold.

The duck in plum sauce was more or a starter but at the price of a main. The other guests with me struggled to contain their laughter. It sat in a pool of sauce that was overly sweet and sickly.

The second person who came to our table brought food over and just left it on the side without handing it over to the appropriate guest.

The service was inattentive, the food was hugely overpriced given the measly quantity and that's before we get to the quality. The word 'poor' would be an understatement but there are restrictions on the language you can use in these reviews.

The decor was so bland, dated and uninspired.

It is without a doubt the worst experience I have had in a restaurant and would have been happier to have headed straight home for cheese on toast.

I honestly could not...

A very disappointing experience. Booked for an all you can eat at 7.15pm. Took around 20 minutes for someone to take our starters order, by almost 8pm we had only just received our first round of starters. Whilst waiting for these I asked for some prawn crackers as the children were getting hungry and restless (these after over 45 minutes had not appeared) when the first starters arrived we asked if we could order the same round again due to the wait they said yes. Another 20 minutes passed and we still had not received these by this time it was 8.30pm and we had still only had one round of starters growing increasingly concerned that the kitchen would close at 9pm. I spoke with the waitress and she apologised and rushed these out and took my mains order at the same time. For a table of 8 we received our second round of appetisers on one single small plate as pictured and it was covered in squid which we had not ordered nor would eat. Then half way through one of the children eating the chicken she realised it was pink. 8.45 one round of semi decent starters and one round of appalling starters resulting in me complaining and refusing to order more and demanding our money back and subsequently leaving still starving with children at now 9pm! Would never ever return and now see why they take payment...