Everyone loves a good Chinese takeaway and, with so many to choose from, it can be difficult to know which one to place your order with.
However, The Golden Dragon in Danygraig Road, in Swansea, has just been named the best in Wales at the British Takeaway Awards 2018 - so surely a great recommendation if you ever needed one?
The family shop, which has been a fixture in the Port Tennant area for more than a decade, fought off competition from fellow finalists Wok In A Box in Pontypridd, Swansea's Touchline Café and 2017 winner Café Wiwo Noodle bar in Cathays.
Each finalist was shortlisted after having received the highest amount of public votes, while the ultimate say fell to the panel of expert judges from the industry.
So does it deserve the accolade? We ordered some food on a busy Friday night to see for ourselves...
Ordering and delivery
We visited their website at around 7pm on Friday, finally placing our food order at 7.08pm. With a delivery fee to the Plasmarl area of Swansea of £3.90, it said the food would be delivered in around an hour.
However, at 8.30pm, there was no sign of the food so we called them back. We were told it wouldn’t be long and the food finally arrived at 8.50pm. Not only was the food around 40 minutes late, but it didn’t arrive overly warm and we had to reheat it in the microwave for a bit.
The delivery came with a small bag of prawn crackers and a small portion of spring rolls, which we guess was to apologise for the delay.
The food
The Golden Dragon has a substantial menu which is easy to navigate on their website as it is broken down into several clear categories, including Thai-style dishes, noodle boxes, Japanese dishes and party favourites.
There were three of us eating food tonight so we ordered several dishes to make sure we got a good idea of what their food is like.
We ordered Jacky's chow mein (£8.80) as it is their signature dish, but we didn’t order any additional sauces (which cost 80p each). It was a large portion and we weren’t able to finish it.
The dish - which was well presented - consists of a large portion of noodles with small, tender chicken pieces, spring onions, egg, sesame seeds and coriander. It is served with a large, crispy chicken breast in spicy (but not too spicy) sweet chilli sauce.
It also comes with some broccoli on the side, which I have to admit we didn’t eat. Out of all the dishes we ordered, Jacky’s chow mein was probably my favourite - I thought the noodles were full of flavour and the crispy chicken breast came with lots of sauce.
We also ordered a regular portion of egg fried rice (£3.10) and crispy beef with Peking sauce (£7.20) as it is one of my colleague’s favourite dishes. The beef was crispy but we found it came with too much sauce, meaning the beef lost some of its crispiness.
King prawns with ginger and spring onions (£6.70) were also among our order. Sadly, this dish was the most disappointing. Even though we found the amount of prawns was average (around 10), the ginger pieces were too large and made the dish difficult to enjoy.
The sauce it came in didn’t look particularly appetising but, having taken out the ginger pieces, the onions were soft and well cooked, and so were the prawns. However, we didn’t eat much of it and I wouldn’t order this dish again.
Another of my colleagues isn’t a big fan of Chinese food so he ordered fish and chips (£5.60) from their English dishes section. The portion of chips was generous but the chips were really soggy. The cod - which was smaller than you would expect - had a crispy batter that wasn’t oily. It is good that traditional fish and chips are on the menu but it isn’t their speciality.
Our verdict
The whole meal came to £31.40 which, despite the big portions, we found it to be expensive for what it was.
The Golden Dragon is a nice enough Chinese, but, personally, we didn’t think it was anything special and after that long wait for the delivery, I don’t think we will order from them again.
The Golden Dragon is at 158 Danygraig Rd, Port Tennant, Swansea SA1 8NF. Call 01792 412292 or visit their website at www.swanseagoldendragon.co.uk
