King Neptune — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

Its been such a long time since we've visited King Neptune. Our memories were always of fine food and exceptional service. We're really pleased to say that the food and service is still quite exceptional. We were in Newcastle on a Wednesday lunchtime. We really didn't expect to find KN busy. It was very busy. We only had to wait a few minutes before we were shown to our table however. We decided on the KN meal for two lunch banquet. We also decided on Chinese tea to go with the meal. The Chicken and sweetcorn soup was very wholesome and flavourful . The crispy duck and steamed pancakes followed, they were also very tasty. Deep fried chicken in sweet and sour sauce was a fine partner with stir fried beef with green pepper in a chilli sauce. A plentiful supply of egg fried rice complimented both dishes. We don't do desserts. The service was very efficient. Our questions were happily answered by the friendly staff. The bill matched the quality of the food and service. We were even able to buy the same Chinese tea at a Chinese Supermarket at the end of the street. It was an hour well spent. Well done...

Husband enjoyed his main dish of king prawn Szechuan sauce. My food was not so good. The cashew nuts in sweet and sour sauce had batter that was too heavy and tasted strange (as a vegan dish I hope this is not fried with fish and meat but suspect it was by the taste). I really craved spring rolls but was told they have egg in them. I queried this as I make them myself and cook Chinese food a lot but the waiter was adamant they weren’t vegan due to egg in the spring roll pastry. We ordered salt and pepper tofu instead. This dish was salty, bland and not as good as my local takeaways. I didn’t eat much. The waiter then said the chef had affirmed the spring rolls had no egg but trust him they do really. For anyone with food allergies be careful here as there’s confusion about ingredients. Service was a touch slow and our table was too close to another couple upstairs so we could hear everything they said very clearly. I felt very uncomfortable. We had our post wedding celebration meal here in the 1990s so we really wanted to come here on our trip to Newcastle but sadly won’t...

We were tired,...very tired, it had been a long day shopping on very little sleep and far too much red wine the night before.

So we needed some comfort food, something to stimulate the taste buds, with good service that meant we didn't have to think too much and a nice relaxing atmosphere.

We found all that and more in King Neptune, we were promptly taken to our seats and there was a lovely relaxing vibe which already made us feel at ease. The extensive menu gave us plenty of choice including some unusual dishes like soft shell crab, and some very tasty pork dumplings. We also went for a classic favourite of sweet and sour chicken and the special friend rice.

The food was great and what made it special was the wonderful service. The waiters were patient (and probably slightly amused) as we struggled to fight through our hungover jelly brains. The food all arrived promptly and they had the perfect balance of attentiveness without it being overly annoying. The prices were reasonable and we left feeling 100% better than when we arrived. Highly...