Restaurant Review: Royal China, Queensway

Style Points: 4/5
Price: ££
Overall: 3/5

Royal China in Queensway is a popular dim sum restaurant which has been open for over twenty years. After a recent refurbishment, this new-look restaurant features a stunning gold leaf ceiling, and a new ornate hand-painted Chinese mural with a modern twist on the classic Royal China wave motif.

Elegant black and gold interiors alongside oriental artwork furnish the Queensway branch of Royal China, and after such a lavish entrance we couldn't wait to get started on the food.

Royal China Queensway restaurant review exterior

What's on the menu?

We started with small dishes of nuts and crudites with our delicious drinks (a sparkling Kir Royale and Lychee Bellini). The menu isn't in the typical order of appetisers, mains and desserts so expect a little bit of flicking through the vast array of aromatic dishes on offer.

Our appetisers came in the form of chicken satay and prawn toast. The chicken satay had a light coating, good quality meat which was a decent size and a little meatier than usual and was served with a lovely thick satay sauce. Our prawn toast tasted like it was freshly made, it had great flavour and a soft pillow-like texture with a crunch and thankfully it wasn't too oily. We were really pleased with our starters.

For our mains we ordered the steamed prawn and duck rice wrapped in lotus leaf which was served in an authentic steamed basket, the rice tasted pleasant but the texture was quite dry so we added some soy sauce to it which made it go down more easily.

From the menu we also ordered the vermicelli with prawns which was light and flavoursome however I would have personally preferred it even lighter perhaps cooked with less oil. On the whole, our mains did not taste as fresh as our starters. Also we wanted rice/noodles as side dishes but the portions were more the size of mains.

Prawn toast - Royal China Queensway review

In addition to the rice we also had the shredded beef, this is not a dish I've had previously and it's not what I expected. I thought it was shredded meat in the way you might have shredded chicken in a sandwich but the shredded beef is crunchy and smothered in a sauce. The pieces themselves are fairly long chewy pieces and it was served on a huge bed of crunchy white nest that looked really impressive.

Again, I felt this was quite heavy and I think the trick for me may be to eat seafood and soups at oriental restaurants rather than heavy meat dishes (although you can't go wrong with duck pancakes) but if you love your Chinese packed with flavour and power then this is perfect for you.

Now for the dessert! From the menu we decided to share the toffee banana, this was similar to one of my favourite deserts (banana fritters) but exactly like a toffee apple, just replace the apple with sweet soft banana. Hot balls of banana encased in a glossy hardened candy shell of toffee. Unless you have a particularly sweet tooth, it could be too much sweet goodness for one individual but I thought it was absolutely delicious. I think it could be better served with ice cream/sorbet to balance out the sweetness.

Could I afford to diner here again?

Our meals came to approximately £27 each (without drinks) which is reasonable price in comparison to the amount of food we received, which was all served in good quantities.

Overall?

All in all, our appetisers and dessert were delicious but we regretted ordering such heavy dishes for our mains. I really like the decor of the restaurant and staff were helpful but as the restaurant became busier they were a little bit rushed off their feet and were harder to get hold of so I would recommend an early dinner for the staffs full attention.