Calpe Restaurant Review: Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant in Calpe
Last week my partner and I were hankering for a Chinese meal but instead of heading to our usual haunt we decided to try the Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant on the corner of Calles X?bia and Gibraltar, near the Plaza del Mediterraneo by the Playa La Fossa/Levante. Would it be as good as our usual Chinese restaurant in Calpe? Let?s see shall we.
The Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant looks quite big and has a bright yellow sign above a large outside dining area, although at the moment this is not being used for outside dining due to the March evening temperatures. Looking at the Men? del Dia prices on the board outside things looked encouraging. Prices ranged from 4.50? to 8.80? for a Men? del Dia which included half a bottle of wine or water and dessert or coffee. The Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant in Calpe also has a comprehensive ? la carte menu too. We entered and were enthusiastically greeted with a rather shouty ?Hello!?. After being shown to our table we were bought some complimentary prawn crackers and the menus. Everything looked good so far?
Starters
At the Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant in Calpe the menu is set out slightly different from other Calpe restaurants. Here the men? del dia offered a choice of 12 meals with a set starter and a set main course, each coming with fried rice or noodles. It appears however that you can have a choice of starter with any main course. The choice of starters being between Chinese salad, chicken soup, hot and sour soup or spring roll. I, as usual, chose the hot and sour soup, whilst my girlfriend opted for spring roll, as usual. Yes, it may seem boring to always chose the same dish but it is good for comparative purposes at different Calpe restaurants!
My hot and sour soup arrived very quickly but the spring roll took a little longer. I prefer it when the courses arrive to all diners at the same time but at these prices I can?t really expect too much. My hot and sour soup had lots of egg on top and was slightly darker than usual but it had a lovely flavour. My girlfriend enjoyed her spring roll very much. It was large, hot, and tasty, and the sweet sauce supplied with it was paler than some restaurants, but she liked it a lot. Things were looking good for Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant in Calpe.
Mains
In the men? del dia the choice of mains at the Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant in Calpe is okay. There are twelve mains to choose from, including omelette, sweet and sour pork, chicken with almonds, duck with bamboo, up to the most expensive being shrimp with bamboo and mushrooms. All come with a choice of fried rice or noodles. My girlfriend picked chicken with curry sauce and I decided on roast pork with hot sauce.
The fried rice and chicken curry arrived a few minutes before mine but it did smell nice. I had a quick taste and seemed fine. The rice looked a little sad though, almost as if it had been sitting around for a while. My roast pork in hot sauce arrived soon but I?m afraid to say that it neither hot in physical heat or in spiciness. In fact it was luke warm, bland and ?gloopy?. I didn?t enjoy my main course at all and with the rice being far from good I was very disappointed. My dining partner wasn?t enjoying her meal that much either. Like my dish, her sauce had no spicy heat and she decided that it needed much more ?curry-ness? to it.
Fortunately the half bottle of wine included with the meal was quite pleasant and was going down well!
Desserts
The waitress was rushing us through our meal which was a little annoying, so we soon came to choosing a dessert. The menu stated that all meals came with ice cream or coffee but she also offered us a choice of flan. Being naive by girlfriend ordered the flan expecting to receive a nice looking cake-type dish but instead she was given a shop-bought creme caramel plonked straight from the pot into a dish. My vanilla ice cream was probably the worst that I have ever had in a men? del dia in Calpe. It tasted like the cheapest vanilla you might buy from a supermarket ? perhaps the equivalent of a Spanish ?Tesco Basics? ice cream. Nasty. I nearly didn?t eat it!
What do we think?
I?m always honest in these Calpe restaurant reviews and I like to give the positives along with the negatives. I know that lots of expats (especially British) eat at the Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant in Calpe but in my absolutely honest opinion you can walk 5 minutes down the road, pay a euro more, and have a much better meal at the BeniAsia Chinese Restaurant in Calpe Port. The food is better there and the atmosphere and service is great. Sure, food and eating at restaurants is all personal opinion and this is mine (and my partners)!
The service at the Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant in Calpe was very rushed, until we wanted to pay the bill of course, when they completely ignored us for a long time. We sat down to eat at 8.15pm. We had our dessert bought to us at 8.50pm but it wasn?t until 9.25pm until we finally got to pay, twenty five minutes after the dessert dishes had been cleared from the table. The service was very terse and a little rude (probably because we weren?t regulars) but we were bought a small liqueur with the bill, which is always a plus point in my view. The final meal cost just 11.40? for two (less than the price for one person in many restaurants) but sometimes a cheap meal is just that ? cheap but nothing more.
We personally wouldn?t recommend the Ni Hao Chinese Restaurant in Calpe to our friends or family and we won?t be returning. If anyone can recommend another great Chinese restaurant in Calpe to us (besides the BeniAsia), please do!
Food: Average
Service: Average
Value for money: Good
Atmosphere: Average
Price (per head): 0 ? 10?
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This post was submitted by Calpe.
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