1805 Restaurant — Restaurant in Great Britain

I visited 1805 in what was there second week of opening. First impressions seemed to be good. Gone are the luxuries of carpets, tablecloths, and comfortable chairs, and in are an expanse of stone tiled floors, bare wooden tables and chairs. Overall nice, but reminds me a little like nandos if it weren't for a rickshaw, Chinese ornaments and mahjong sets that adorned the place. Menu prices seemed to be slightly more expensive than Southampton dim sum prices although portion sizes are smaller. The obligatory famous egg custard tarts were nice, but overall were small and not served warm. Other dishes came out well presented, and pretty to look at but all seemed to be lacking something. The noodle dishes came out small. Where other places would have been enough for my family of three, the noodles here came up short again. The Cheung Fun was lacking in soy which made it dry. From the time of them taking our drinks order on arrival, we had to remind them three times for a glass of water. Not really something I would expect when being charged a 12.5% service charge. Not quite sure where they picked this figure from, but I would expect to be pampered and looked over for them to charge this. This wasn't an option to not pay this and looking at the bill, it seemed to be obligatory rather than at a descretion. I only paid this as I would rather do this and not to create any type of scene, but really it does deter me coming back here. Chinese tea prices are ridiculous. Most dim sum places charge £1, a nominal charge or don't charge at all for Chinese, this place charges £3.50 per customer! Don't forget there's also the 12.5% ontop of this price, so it brings the cost to nearly £4 for a Chinese tea for one person! I did have family visiting me the following week, and was hoping to take them all down here for a family meal which would have been 10 people, but we decided to all drive to Southampton and meet down there to have a get together. I wouldn't want to be charged £40 for Chinese tea for the family before eating anything. Evening meal prices are very expensive aswell, as portions again are extremely small. A sweet and sour king prawn which only has 6 small prawns with service charge, you are paying close to £18 alone just for the dish. Overall, it's a shame as I was hoping to make this my regular dim sum place, but unfortunately I guess Southampton will still be the place to go for this. With so many local Chinese eateries to choose from locally, it does seem that they have just priced themselves above all others. I've also had friends who've visited after they opened who have said much the same thing about their visit to me and told me that they would not be returning. For me, I may give this restaurant another go in the future, but would really need to hear from friends that things may have changed before I do again. I hope this is all teething problems and hope management do listen to feedback given, as this Chinese restaurant...

Absolute awful experience at 1805 on Saturday 19th June!! I’ve been here a few times with my friends and always been pleasantly pleased. However tonight was a different story. Our food came out within 5 minutes of ordering which was a bit concerning, I then took a bite into the chicken satays we ordered to notice we have been served raw chicken so I immediately called the waitress over and she said she was really sorry and she would get a fresh lot sent out straight away. 10 minutes later went by.. still no chicken, in the end when we finished all our food she came over and said “did you get the chicken, do you want it” well of course we don’t want it now as we have finished our whole meal.

It got to paying the bill and I was not happy to pay full price when I had ate raw chicken.. they added on an optional service charge which I asked to be taken off and said to them that I wasn’t happy about the situation and some sort of discount should be applied as a good gesture.. to then be shouted at and told they can’t do anything about it and mistakes happen and they cannot apply any discount. The staff were absolutely terrible in handling this situation.. even worse the “Manager” was soo rude and had the cheek to tell us we was lying and that the chicken wasn’t raw, in that case why would we of sent it back!? We had no choice but to pay for the bill and leave very unhappy, we will never be returning here and telling friends & family to avoid at all costs unless you want...

Having had a good experience at this restaurant previously, I was very disappointed with my recent visit. 😞😞😞😞

Whilst I appreciate restaurants are under additional pressure with all of the COVID-19 restrictions, I don't see that customer service should be affected. Customer numbers are reduced and it only takes good communication and a pleasant manner to deal with any unforeseen problems.

When initially "greeted", I didn't feel like a welcome customer but more of a burden to the staff. The food which was previously of a high standard could only be described as mediocre. Despite prebooking a table we were asked to move midway through our meal as "they needed the table back". When we came to order desserts we were told "they were too busy and could only offer ice cream". This was particularly disappointing for the children.

So, the meal and service weren't at all good yet a discretionary service charge was added. Despite the poor service we paid this but there was an additional surplus of cash when we paid. We felt the discretionary service charge was more than sufficient in the circumstances so asked for change. You'd have thought we'd asked them to scrape dog dirt of our shoes with the filthy look we got followed by our change practically being thrown at us!!!

This sort of service is just unacceptable and there are plenty of other good restaurants to go to. I won't be returning unfortunately and would reccomend...