White Swan — Restaurant in London

I have been to this place many times. I will never go back. Takeaway. Early evening. Not busy. Lady I have seen before was on ‘reception’ talking on phone mainly to Uber eats. Constantly. She ignored me. 5 minutes later a waitress took my order. Handed me my raffle ticket. No problem. I went off for 10 minutes. Came back. Lady still on phone to Uber. 5 mins tick by. 10 mins tick by. I see two meals awaiting collection on the collection shelf. I try to see if one was mine. Could not tell. Go back to listen to lady talking to Uber. 12 mins tick by. I put my ticket on the counter right in front of her. She finishes on the phone. Ignores me and screws up my ticket and throws it away. I point out that she has thrown my ticket away. She retrieved it and threw it at me crumpled up. I uncrumpled it and asked her to at least check the two meals on the collection shelf. She did and found my meal. Now about 20 mins. Not a word of apology just dumped in front of me. I hailed a passing male waiter and asked to see the manager. He said he was the manager. He was not the manager. I know the manager. He basically blanked my complaints, took no action. He said he would ring me the next day. He did not. Absolutely appalling service. They are not interested in walk-in...

Staff were not very good at all, I absolutely understand that English is not everybody's first language and learning another language is very hard but if you choose a customer facing role where your job is to take orders and converse a little to make people feel welcome then you really should try at least to learn the basics before starting. Mix ups were all over the place and all because of such a difficult language barrier... The restaurant itself has really gone downhill over the last 5-6 years or so, from cracks in walls to unrepaired glass it is need of a big tidy up. The food was a mixed bag, we had the mixed starters, the ribs were cooked well but just 50%fat, the satay was OK if not a bit over cooked and pancake rolls a bit bland. The mains were OK but nothing that will set the world alight....

All in all very disappointing and unfortunately adter many years of poping by we will now not be going back again and I am urging...

Got a takeaway from here last night and was very impressed. Used to dine in here but it never really blew me away. However everything we had yesterday was really delicious including the fried tofu with salt and chilli, aubergine in black bean sauce, special vegetarian noodles (they were thin noodles which I loved and came with tofu and vegetable). My parents loved their duck and hot and sour soup. Got it on uber eats and it came on the early end of when it was predicted. This is my new favorite in the area alongside dynasty in south woodford, although they were shut yesterday so we tried here instead.

Edit: after ordering here a couple of times, it’s been pretty hit or miss. Maybe it depends on who’s cooking in any given night. Sometimes it’s super delicious and other times it’s way too sweet and flavorless otherwise. On a good night it’s still 5, but on a bad night it’s...