Yangtze Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in England

Oh dear.

Over the years I've been a loyal customer to both the restaurants in the chain. Both this and Jasmine in Maidenhead have been my go-to restaurants of choice since around 2014.

But in the last 2 months the standards have dropped quite significantly.

Firstly the price. It used to be £14.95 for a buffet, then £16.95 pre pandemic. Post pandemic it's £18.95 but I get that for hospitality it was a very hard time so a price rise is acceptable.

Now it's £23.95. A pint of Pepsi is £3.80. Oh and there is a service charge on top.

For 2 drinks and 1 meal I paid £31.50.

The food quality used to be exceptional too. Had it still been the same, I'd be unhappy at the price but when the food is excellent, you don't mind as much.

Today:

Prawn crackers stale, old. A cheap, thick, heavily laden sweet chili sauce which was unpleasant. Starter portion has become a third smaller than previous.

The duck pancakes are still OK but again, the quality of the meat has dropped. Dry and cut into tiny shreds whereas before was much more generous.

The main courses were also not great.

Sweet and Sour Pork, meat tough. Sauce thin. Lemon chicken was slimy & caked in oil. Chilli beef was adequate. Chicken curry was thin & average.

No longer using proper napkins, now paper ones used.

Now I am paying 33% more and getting a whole lot less.

That I couldn't stomach finishing the main courses tells its own story. I've loved the food here over the years, I never leave anything behind.

This is not isolated either, the Jasmine last time out was average also but the food was still of a better standard.

This will be the last time I go to this restaurant.

The staff were as always brilliant though. But while nothing was "poor" this is now an expensive meal with no value for money.

Avoid until some significant improvements in food quality and...

Final visit. Been coming here for 20 years but not going back. Used to love this place but over recent years the attitude and service has gone to pot. Check out their wine menu for example. They've had Koonunga Hill Chardonnay on it for the last 10 years but NEVER have it in stock!! They now serve warm chardonnay and dispute it's warm when you complain then come up with lame excuse about their fridge not working. Hope the fridge they keep the food in is working. And the decor! They did give it a coat of paint a few years ago while it was still open for business. The worst decor in Windsor. They don't care. Sometimes the place is open in the afternoon, now usually it's not. They cater for a great deal of coach parties from the far east. They arrive en masse and are gone just as quickly. Otherwise the place is quiet and a shadow of it's former self. Pity. There are plenty of other restaurants to choose from within yards. Their sister restaurant with a dance floor next door closed down about 10 years ago and never reopened. I see the building is currently being renovated but doubt it belongs to the...

Not great. Ordered from them on new years and the food was nice. We usually order from Hong Kong in town which are amazing but they are closed on Tuesdays. I recommended ordering again today (Tuesday) as we craved Chinese food. Spent almost £109 and the food was below mid. The special fried rice was mushy (overcooked rice) , flavourless and white!. I ordered special fried rice not plain rice. I called and they said oh some people don’t like soy sauce. Surely if people don’t like soy sauce they order PLAIN RICE. Special fried rice has barely any toppings, garlic, ginger, spring onions so lacked ANY flavour. I ended up having to add soy sauce and a lot of ginger and spring onions etc to have any flavour. Also ordered beef in black bean sauce and it was HALF portion. Counted 6 tiny slices of beef. Veg wasn’t cooked properly in the beef, just tasted added on at the very end. Very poor. Should’ve known better when almost £100 worth of food arrived within less than a hour. Barely coated food. Will never order again. Would rather wait till Hong Kong...