London Hong Kong is a Chinese restaurant which bills itself as selling "authentic Cantonese and Peking Cuisine". It is based at 388 Bath Road, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 0DH. It is very close to the airport and I've been told that it is frequented by airline staff. I cannot confirm the validity of what I've been told but I can recount to you my first and last experience of dining at this restaurant.

On entering the restaurant you are greeted by a pleasant hostess who asks you how many in your party and then asks for your name so they can address you by it, i.e. Mr Jones, Mr Singh, etc. To the right as you enter the premises is the reception area where the host or hostess waits to greet incoming customers and hold the door open for exiting customers. To the left as you enter is a flashy bar area which on first appearances is also very colourful and welcoming but on further inspection seems quite garish. Behind the bar area is the kitchen and between the kitchen and the restaurant seating area are the toilets. The staff seemed really attentive when we first walked in. This changed very quickly though.

The toilets were nice and clean, can't complain about those at all. The tables were spread out quite spaciously but it didn't help that the staff (and there were a LOT Of them) were charging around with an air of importance which was totally unnecessary with their earpieces in barking orders or whatever they were doing, it really didn't feel as if they were paying attention when you spoke with any of them.

THE MEAL/THE EXPERIENCE

My husband always has chicken and sweet-corn soup, this was £3.50. My starter of sesame prawn toast was £5.50. They brought out his soup whilst my husband was in the toilet. He seemed to be gone quite a while, then I realised he'd gone to the bar to order a drink as it was proving difficult to get one of the waiting staff's attention (even though there seemed to be dozens of waiting staff around). He ordered a large single malt whiskey with soda and it was £7.50. He had to ask for ice… I had a bitter lemon which was flat and over-loaded with ice - this cost £1.60 in rather a small glass. I was not impressed with this so far. A good ten minutes after they'd bought out the pretty small bowl of soup for my husband and my starter hadn't arrived. After 3 attempts I managed to get a waiter's attention, I said the soup had come out a while ago, where was my prawn toast. He looked at me blankly; then said "you ordered a prawn toast?" which was annoying because we'd got the waitress to read our order back to us as she seemed a bit confused when writing it down. Another 3 or 4 minutes later my prawn toast was delivered. My heart sank. On a small bed of garnish were 4 small triangles of prawn toast (basically 1 slice of bread). It was not what I was expecting for £5.50 and my heart sank even further with my first bite. The toast was drenched in oil. You could even see from the colour of the toast that it was very oily. I was not impressed so far and could only hope that my main course was going to be more substantial and tasty. Hubby said his soup was edible but nowhere near the standard of even the most basic of Chinese restaurants soups he had eaten in the past. I tried the soup, it was bland. We actually had to ask for some more salt to add in the soup to give it some flavour.

Ten minutes after they'd cleared away our starter dishes a waitress came over and plonked down two small bowls and plates on our table without saying a word. No one asked if we'd like another drink. Another 15 minutes later my husband's chicken dish arrived. The portion seemed healthier than we were expecting. We waited, another waitress came along and put the small bowls in front of us and started serving up the rice which they'd put 2 portions into one bowl. We thought this was one portion of rice! She scooped some into both of us bowls quite quickly and dropped a load of rice onto the table and walked away without apologising. How weird. She didn't come back to clear it up. I told my husband to start eating, I didn't want his food getting cold. Over 5 minutes later, a waiter came over and literally dumped a plate in front of us saying "crispy shredded beef" and walked away before I could stop him. I had to get another waiter to come over and explain that I had order crispy pork not beef, could they check what this dish was as the other waiter had said it was beef. He confirmed that it was in fact beef and took the plate away. Hubby in the mean time is eating his food and telling me to have some of his as it could be ages before they sort out my food. It was another 5 minutes and I wasn't impressed by the chicken dish anyway. The rice was almost cold. The crispy shredded pork in chill was in fact crispy strands of some sort of coating in sweet and sour sauce with some chillis sliced up on the plate. I ate less than half of it;

Pictures of London Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant (Heathrow)

A small bowl of chicken soup

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Our bill was brought to us before we'd even asked for it and we asked them to call us a cab as we'd walked there from our hotel. It was about 1.5 miles and the walk had taken us over 20 minutes - it was a pretty cold evening, we wanted to just get a cab and get back to our hotel.

We left the restaurant feeling rather bemused and somewhat ripped off. The cab ride back to our hotel took about 5 minutes and again we were stunned when the cab driver said the charge was £10. We queried the charge - he said it was the minimum fare. We live in West London and the minimum fare around where we live is £6.00 for the shortest of journeys. It seemed everyone was out to rip us off this evening!

Crispy Seaweed - £4.00
Deep Fried Frogs Legs - £6.80
Deep Fried Oysters (2 pcs) - £5.80
Deep Fried Squid - £8.80
Quick Fried Fresh Scallops - £9.80
Deep Fried Scallops with Yam Paste - £12.80
Sweet and Sour Chicken £7.90
Diced Chicken with Fresh Mushrooms - £7.90
Shredded Pork Szechuan Style - £8.80
Sizzling Lamb with Ginger and Spring Onions - £10.80
Sizzling King Prawns in Soya Sauce - £14.00
Mixed Roast Platter - £9.80
Boiled Rice - £2.00
Special Fried Rice - £5.50
Malaysian Style Flat Noodles - £8.50
Mango Pudding - £3.00
Coffee - £2.00
Chinese Tea - £1.00
There were also selection of set meals for minimum of 2 - 6 people ranging from £16.80 to £28.80 per person.