Paddyfields Restaurant — Restaurant in Oxford

It might be easy to miss Paddyfields as it looks a bit inconspicuous on the outside and is not as widely lauded as some of the other Chinese restaurants in Oxford but if you are looking for an economical yet filling meal that will leave you thinking about it for days this restaurant is a must -try!

Their menu can be a bit disorienting as there are so many options but the staff are very helpful and will give you recommendations and answer any questions. If you are going as a group it’s a good idea if everyone orders what they find appealing and you then share as then everyone will get a chance to try out more menu items.

We went as a group of four and ordered a shredded crispy duck, pork belly hot pot, a beef in oyster sauce sizzle, black bean beef noodles, mixed meat dumplings, glutinous rice and a spicy sour soup. There was literally not a single dish that we disliked from the ones we ordered, everything was astonishingly delicious, it was prepared super quickly and the staff served it with a lot of care and attention to detail.

The price in the end was £24 per person but considering we definitely ordered more than we could eat, I’d say you can get an amazing meal here for about £20 a head.

Again I would like to emphasise that the staff was really kind and quick with the service and even patiently waited for us to finish our meal even as they were starting to close the restaurant.

Overall brilliant food and excellent service for a very reasonable...

10/10 experience! As soon as you go in, there is an automatic temperature checker and full body sanitiser booth/gateway to step into, then hand sanitiser. The staff showed us to our table which felt like it’s own personal booth with clear screens all sides. All the staff were consistently wearing masks properly. Any extra utensils which were bought over were visibly cleaned before being handed over and once other tables were vacated, staff took great measures in disinfecting (not just cleaning!) the tables and chairs. Going above and beyond in terms of Covid security.

I went for hotpot which was super. Big portions of fresh food. I was surprised by the quality of the food for the price charged (~£23pp on a weekend). Unlike most places, you can also reorder more plates of food if required. For extra money, can order fancier seafood for the hotpot like crab and sea bass. Freshly fried yaotiu too. Also a big array of dipping sauce items which most places charge extra for.

Staff were very attentive and friendly. They speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

Also had a really nice iced lemon tea - not like a normal lemon tea, was much much nicer!

Overall would definitely come again....

Completely awful food!!! This is the 2nd time we have eaten at Paddyfields. The last time was not very good, but we thought since there are not too many Dim Sum options in Oxford we would try again. I cannot tell how bad the food was. We ordered a very large order (most types of dim sum) and we have a lot of years of experience with this type of food (mostly in London Chinatown). The food was really very poor, raw undercooked shrimp, really bad taste - even the chinese tea had a very strange "chemical" type taste (sent it back and it still came back the same). Some of the dim sum that was undercooked we asked to have it replaced - but then it came back really unpleasant tasting. They could see that in the end we left probably 30-40% of the food uneaten and told them what we thought - but they still charged use the full price for all the order (even the food that we asked not to give us as we were not going to eat it). Again one of the most unpleasant meals (Dim Sum or otherwise) that we...