Waterside Palace Restaurant

Good food, but lacking service.

Not to the standard of decent US Chinese restaurants in the Boston, NY and SF areas that I usually visit. The people are nice enough but slow and the food is adequate but limited.

I have been to this restaurant three or four times over the last few years. They do provide parking but it is tight, smallish spaces, but most people are careful. There has usually been a wait for our table, but the waiting area is comfortable.

The restaurant tends to be a little crowded, however not to the extent that it is a real problem, but they do like to serve as many people as they can. The space allowed for our latest party of four was fine though. We had to ask them to remove a few unnecessary items but we had a lot of dishes too.

Services is usually fairly leisurely, they aren't in any particular hurry to take orders or deliver food, so it isn't somewhere to go if you are in a hurry.

The food is very good, UK Chinese food can tend to be a little ordinary and bland, this is actually a good example of decent Chinese food. The menus tend to run to more interesting items than the usual chicken with cashew nuts or sweet and sour pork.

But in the end it's a slow and slightly expensive way to get pretty decent food. It isn't somewhere I'd recommend visiting several times a month for example.

Special occasions should be avoided. We had the severe misfortune to book dinner there on New Year's Eve 2011/2012. The fixed banquet menu was fine, we'd probably have ordered something similar though maybe less of it. So far so good. But nobody mentioned that this otherwise fairly classy restaurant had decided that a New Year's Eve dinner banquet at forty pounds a head should include a disco and karaoke 'show'. So what should have been a quiet and pleasurable dinner with friends turned in to a shouting match. We couldn't talk and the staff couldn't hear us. One table was in to the whole thing, they had a bunch of kids with them and the whole crew was stomping around the open areas and singing very badly to the thumping beat of the karaoke machine.

We quit after the starters, we just couldn't see any point in holding on for the main course, so we took seven boxes home with us instead.

They also slapped on a service charge. I paid it because I just wanted to leave.

If you decide to go there on a special occasions you should ask for the full details before you commit. I did try to contact the management to see what they had to say but they ignored my emails (I live 5,000 miles away).

Yum yum yum!! One of my top 3 favourite chinese restaurants!!I love chinese food and The Waterside Palace (Newcastles Quayside) is one of my favourite Chinese restaurants ever. The prawn crackers (my favourite!!) are amongst the best I've ever tasted and the food has always been fantastic. Whenever someone I know goes I ask them to bring a bag of prawn crackers back for me! The staff are always lovely and friendly and very accommodating to anyone who may have special dietry requirements. There is a huge choice of meals available on the menu but each time we go we order one of the banquets. This way everyone can choose a different dish and we each get to sample the different foods. Prices are not cheap but they are reasonable as the quality of the food has never disappointed!