Jade Fountain — Restaurant in South Cambridgeshire

The overall experience was pretty good. Good enough for the top score. Nothing super memorable, just consistent high standard. A few observations: the menu booklet pages and the menu content looks very simple. For example, "(meat type) with black bean sauce". Exactly the same text, different types of meats. In other restaurants it's very similar, but over here it was very attention grabbing. Not a star deducting negative thing, however. It took quite long until the dishes were served. The hall was full of people, with reasonable distancing between the tables. That can easily indicate that the chef could be overwhelmed with timely orders. That was a real concern, but it proved to be needless worry because the food taste, and observed quality were good. The prices are comparable to Cambridge, not smaller even a bit. The food quantity is moderate. A couple of years ago I used to find such amounts to be rather little. Without any intended disrespect, I have noticed that in my experience many Asian restaurants tend to serve kind of small portions, and only a very few that serve average or big. The environment is typical of what you could expect in this type of restaurant. The light installation was probably focused on energy savings, because it was a bit dark, or of dark, despite many weak bulbs being on. It is somewhat romantic atmosphere if you are with the right person. In terms of spiciness, look somewhere else if you're looking for something very spicy. But that's the place where the food generally tastes good, nothing extreme. Even if you add to your order "extra spicy", that is still very low spiciness level. Better than nothing in terms of spiciness. But again, normally if the place serves something very spicy even if a customer asks for it, then the customer cannot handle the heat, and typically because of such weaklings the real spicy places have to close down. If you are still reading, then you hav got to visit this restaurant after all this...

It's very hard to review this restaurant because I literally grew up eating the food from the original owners of the Jade Fountain and the food was incredible, if you had eaten then, you would understand that this place will always be in Mike's shadow. it can never live up to it.

I tried it once the new owners had taken over and it was on the different end of the spectrum and haven't been back until tonight...

Well, I thought I'd give it another go and I'm sorry to say that we were very disappointed with the food.

it started with the salt and pepper ribs... to our surprise they arrived in balls in breadcrumbs or seasoning and just tasted fatty.

We thought we'd leave it and move on and we don't really complain, the waitress noticed we hadn't eaten them and asked us why, so we told her we were expecting something different, she was insistent that everybody liked them and said they were pork chops cut up, I replied, then they are not ribs are they, they are in fact pork chop popcorn balls?? it stressed my partner out so much she couldn't listen to the waitress any longer and went to the toilet.

Then the mains, we didn't really like them, in fact we ate a few mouthfuls, looked at one another and said 'let's just pay the bill and go home'

I will praise very highly that the chef had noticed this and personally came out to ask us what we didn't like about the food and what could he do to put it right. This is excellent service because these people do care and this is why I am actually writing this review so they read it and understand.

The food to me just tasted like a very standard Chinese takeaway, in fact I have had much much better food from the local takeaway.

I can't put my finger on it, the food isn't terrible it's just very mediocre at best.

There is nothing more I'd like than to see the jade fountain flourish and it's so busy that you have to book a month in advance like the old days.

The place needs work.. maybe I'll try it again in...

We visited Jade yesterday with friends. What a refreshing experience it has been that we have been raving about Jade Fountain to everyone we know.

With a car park allowing 3 hours of free parking just across the road, Jade is located perfectly on the high street of sawston.

The ambience is inviting, spacious and tables placed in a way that you are not massively overlooking other tables or people. The restaurant was packed and most tables full by 8pm on a Saturday evening.

Extremely polite and professional staff are a warm reminder of what it takes to be welcoming, friendly and helpful throughout. The manager walked around having conversations with people on almost every table, providing honest recommendation for food choices, how much to order portion wise and making sure everyone was looked after. Staff serving each table we attentive, friendly, polite and warm people.

Decently priced at an average of £35 for 2 people on Al a carte menu or £22 taster menu per person that allows you to try a lot of smaller plates from a variety of dishes you can choose from their menu provided ample options for all.

We ordered many starters, good few main dishes and desserts to satisfy our curiosity and hunger. Every single dish we tried were exceptionally tasty using fresh and high quality ingredients. It left us wanting for more though we were full. Desserts were not overly sweet and light to finish off a 3 course meal. We even took a dessert takeaway as it was so good. Every single plate was clean and empty with no leftover food. That shows how good the food was.

From clean ambience, hot dinner plates, hot towels, enough options to choose for drinks, great ambience and customer service, we cannot wait to go back again with many more friends and family members.

Best wishes to team Jade Fountain! What a refreshing experience. We will...