Oriental Express in Cardiff

VERY unprofessional. 2 hour delivery, nobody had the decency to answer the phone. Called around the one hour mark, was told the food was on the way. Vile.

Absolutely awful service. Food arrived over an hour late. Very rude phone operator. Overall bad experience would not recommend.

Over priced. Cold. Disgusting. We won’t be back.

It's definitely a game of two halves. The salt and pepper chips, probably the best I've had in years, beef in garlic sauce, outstanding. The sweet and sour chicken was/is shocking. Look at the pic. It may as well be s&s batter. Seriously, this was the same for every ball. Yeah, do what I did and play spot the chicken. Would I order again? Yes. Would I order s&s anything, hell no!

I have been quite a regular customer with this company for a number of years but have today had a horrible experience I'd like to share. Ordered through YOYO and the order arrived 50 minutes later. Driver was extremely friendly which is the highlight of the whole situation. Upon opening the food (which wasn't the hottest) I had noticed an item was delivered incorrect. I called the restaurant to notify them and they had mentioned it would be with us in 15 minutes due to their drivers currently being out on the road. I called back after waiting almost 30 minutes and asked for a refund as it was late in the evening and our meal was over. The person who I spoke to at the restaurant was extremely rude. He kept trying to blame other things and I asked why he couldn't have updated us as to it being late which he just got more argumentative and blamed everything else apart from his poor management. We are extremely busy and haven't had time is something he mentioned. If you are too busy please ensure staffing and management of online orders are correctly managed. He eventually agreed to refunding us and hung up the phone (I'll be very surprised if I receive this refund). We had actually stopped ordering from this business recently due to their extremely poor food hygiene rating from their EHO visit last year but decided to give them another shot. In hindsight we now are regretting this. The EHO/food hygiene rating now seems to have been addressed and fixed by the restaurant. A word of advice for the owners of Orient Express. Customer service is invaluable and is a key way to keep your business operating. Rude and arrogant service will not keep you afloat. You have a vast amount of other takeaways within close proximity to yourselves and returning customers are the most important. Your appalling customer service has lost you a customer today which contributes around £500-600 per year to your business. Please use this as a learning curve and treat any new customers who come through to you as great as you used to treat ourselves.

Kept on cancelling my order seems like they don't want to make money, then when it came, it was cold. Don't order from here

I ordered from Uber Eat but my order never came. I called the restaurant twice to inform them. The individual that picked the call was very disrespectful, yelling at me and calling me a liar. The restaurant representative stated that the order was left at the reception desk of my hotel but the receptionist stated that no food was delivered to them. I tried explaining to the restaurant representative but he wouldn't even let me speak, rather was using an aggressive tone of voice while speaking to me and hung up the phone on me.

Staff are exceptionally rude. Called to get an estimated time for the delivery and was met with horrible attitude and rushed off the phone without even giving a time. This type of behaviour is unacceptable and considering most of the other reviews are complaining about staff I would recommend having an attitude fix 😘

It was one of the best Chinese that me and my partner has had in awhile

Several items on the order were forgotten. Refund should be issued by JustEat, only because when requesting re-delivery of the missing items we were told they’d be ages. For the food that did show up, it was ok. Nothing exceptional with better options available in Cardiff.

I just had the single worst experience I have ever had with a food delivery. To start with, the order was late. This alone would have not bothered me so much. I rang the restaurant to let them know and they told me the driver was stuck in traffic. Ok, fine. Then I had a phone call from the driver. She told me she was outside but was unable to park and told me to be quick. Keep in mind she already sounded stressed out at this point before I had even had a chance to interact with her. I went outside and she was not there. I rang her back and explained to her that she needed to come to the west side of the building. I told her the building name and told her another building as a point of reference for her to navigate. She then rang me back and asked me to direct her. Bear in mind I am not a driver and do not know the roads in Cardiff because I am a new student here. I told her to turn left at a road I thought she could turn left at and it turned out she couldn't. That was an honest mistake on my part and I would have happily apologised for that bit if the next part hadn't happened. When she rang me to tell me this, she immediately launched into blaming me like it was my job to navigate her through Cardiff and was shouting at me down the phone for for not knowing that she could not turn left there. Keep in mind she was already on Newport Road when she rang me. At this point, I responded to her angrily telling her that it shouldn't be my job to navigate her and that as a driver she should be able to figure out how to read a map and get to the place. She just kept repeating that I told her she could turn left, yelling down the phone at me and blaming me for my order being late. I would not have had such an issue over this if I wasn't being yelled at by this woman and blamed for her navigation difficulties. I gave her the name of the building, I gave her a point of reference which she saw by eye, she should have been able to figure out the rest. Let's remember who is doing the job here. I rang the restaurant and they were no better. The restaurant manager himself seemed like he was trying to blame me for upsetting his driver and when I told him my side of it he seemed to want nothing to do with the issue anymore and offered no sort of apology for the situation. The driver eventually figured out how to get to me and was very rude to me, telling me I need to learn how roads work, again blaming me for her navigation difficulties. This is simply not ok and I am not happy with this situation. If it wasnt for the fact this restaurant does good food, I would give zeros all around for this experience and may well not order here again, despite this being my regular place. I understand that these situations can be stressful when you don't know the roads and I would have a bit more sympathy for her if she hadn't turned on me the way she did, but there is no reason to take it out on the customer like this. It is just appalling to act this way. If you do not know how to handle a situation like this calmly and professionally then I am sorry but you should simply not be working as a delivery driver.

Food is good but dont order anything pork cause he's very mean with it. Pork balls and sweet and sour pork no meat. Its his way to cut costs don't use meat.

Food is OK, but the service is terrible. They always seem to have attitude at this place. If an order goes wrong don't expect a pleasant experience at this place. Also, don't bother ordering on Uber Eats as they advertise on there but always cancel the order. It makes no sense.

I posted a review a year ago to say that it was our go-to Chinese and that the food is great, but after my experience on Tuesday, I think it's time to find another Chinese takeaway. We placed our order on their website and were told the food would be here by 20:20. We waited until 20:45 to call and ask for an update. The man on the phone barely let my partner finish his sentence before asking for the post code, he then said it was on the way. Half an hour later, we called back as the order still hadn't arrived and again, the man interrupted us over the phone to say that there was no point us calling them back when we had already been told the delivery driver was on the way and we weren't the only ones who ordered. They ended up blaming traffic (we'd checked Google maps before calling, there was no traffic) and saying they were really busy. They didn't apologise when we said we had ordered 1h40 ago. The food finally arrived and was suspiciously warm considering it would have been with the driver for at least half an hour, according to their timeline. I'm really disappointed by my recent experience. As always, I have nothing negative to say about the food, but having a takeaway is meant to be a bit of a treat, and there's nothing enjoyable about waiting 2 hours for your order to arrive and being yelled at on the phone when you dare chase it.

Ok food, but appalling, rude service. We didn't get an ETA so phoned to ask. I was interrupted from speaking to demand my postcode and then told the typical "it's on the way" as soon as I'd spoken. I was quite surprised as we'd only ordered 15 minutes before. 30 minutes later we phone again, and again the same rude interruption. Again told "it's on the way" before possibly considering there might be an issue. We then hear muttering in the background, are asked to confirm our postcode and then clearly hear our order being printed in the background, which we wait another 40 minutes for. If they hadn't been so rude in the first place and actually listened to why I was phoning they wouldn't have messed up. An absolute shower, we'll never use these jokers again. Pathetic.

Lovely takeaway. Food is always amazing, fresh vibrant flavours and really good value too. Walk in offers are good too

Delivery came not long after I ordered but the wonton soup came with deep fried wontons in it instead of the regular ones. If you are Asian, you can definitely tell if a restaurant or takeaway is using shortcuts instead of making food properly. Char siu (roast pork) is as dry as you can possibly imagine and I swear I have made better ones they the one they gave me. I am suspecting it was done and stored for the next day or longer so that they don't need to make it fresh on a more regular basis. I seldom give bad reviews but significant improvements are needed for me to want to come back again for their food. I don't think the chef is necessarily a bad one but it seems to be that the takeaway just doesn't care enough about the food to get it done the right way

Ordered from here a few times within the last few months and every time the food has been incredible quality and extremely good value for money. The soups, dumplings, chow meins and spare ribs are all to die for. Tried a few Chinese take-away/ deliveries in Cardiff and this is easily a favourite! Always find that the gentleman on the front desk is very lovely too.

Food arrived late and cold, on Just Eat. Requested a refund and no response! I'll never use again which is a shame as food was good previous to this. Very disappointed!

The food tasted amazing, it arrive 30 mins early and got a friendly call to let me know ahead of time

We have ordered takeaway from here a few times. It is consistently a high standard! Best flavour, spice and succulent meat with the best quality vegetables. Highly recommended to everyone with good taste ✨

I like the food but they constantly cancel my Uber eats orders. I'm fed up of it now, it's happened 5 times. You've lost a customer.

Unfortunately awful. Food arrived just over an hour past the estimated delivery time slot (over 2.5 hours after I placed the order). I had to call up twice to chase what was happening, of which during my initial call I was hung-up on despite being polite. The order then arrived incorrect (completely different item). I was told I would then have a refund for the incorrect item. Over an hour since then and still no refund (I imagine that was a lie). I have ordered here before with no issue and ok food but this was really poor all round. Not sure what was happening but it was just a real shame. Won’t be ordering from here again for some time. I never really leave reviews but I had to for this because it was just so bad.

Had food delivered via Uber Eats so couldn't comment on the atmosphere, but the food wasn't quite what we expected. Duck with ginger and spring onion was taken literally with loads of duck fat and some onion chucked in for good measure. King Prawn Chop suey was sweet and sour sauce with King Prawns, spring onion and some bamboo shoots and Broccoli?? That's by far the weirdest version I've tried. The Spring rolls were fab though, and free prawn crackers was a bonus.

Every time food is amazing. So happy to to find them! House special curry and House special rice is best I ever had!

Quite simply the best Chinese in cardiff in my opinion

Food never arrived and when I tried calling the restaurant they were closed. The driver claimed to have tried to contact me as he couldn't find my house. He never rang me once and the email went into my junk and it said he couldn't find me at 10:10pm and I ordered at 10pm so I find it impossible to cook my food and get to my house in 10 minutes.

Usually the meal is very good but the 2 Special Fried Rice we ordered tasted burnt. Very disappointing as we spent £45.

Food gave 3 out of 4 of us food poisoning Do not recommend!

Are you serious?! Bland tasteless rubbish!

Good food good service friendly driver

Have ordered from oriental express many times and have had no problems with them in the past, until now. Website did not update status of order, i phoned to have an update, man who answered phone didn't give clear answer and hung up on me. Phoned straight after, spoke to same person and he told me to f**k off your order on the way, he didn't take my order number or name. I think the manager needs to speak that man about his attitude, i will not be ordering from them again unless staff attitude changes. Absolutely disgraceful. I know its a weekend and they are busy, but that man needs a slap in the face for the way he spoke to me

New to town and wanted to try out a good Chinese. This was my local one so gave it a go and I was impressed for the most part! The chow mein and the beef in black bean sauce had a real depth of flavour, the prawn toast was generous and we were even given free spring rolls alongside the usual prawn crackers. The one issue stopping this being a five-star review were the dumplings: they were delicious and really well seasoned but the pork inside was still raw. Nothing 30 seconds in the microwave at home couldn't sort to make them edible, but equally not what I would expect from my steamed dumplings.

Best Chinese takeaway food I've ever had. Staff are very friendly. I always get free prawn crackers and spring rolls, meals always ready when I arrive to collect. I highly recommend: Beef Chow Mein (dry), Singapore Vermicelli, Sweet & Sour Pork, Salt and Pepper Squid, Salt and Pepper chips.

Ordered for delivery , over 2 and a half hours late and still nothing. There phone is stuck on engaged. Joke . Not even a phone call to let us know

So terrible! Wasted money and time. Ordered on just eat, long delivery -ok. Food came or old or not cooked well... Chips not cooked or old... Same with rice. Chown mein overcooked or overburned or also old... Just UNACCEPTEBLE!!!! Just eat no help, call to restaurant always busy signal... Destroyed dinner and evening mood with so poor service and so teribble food.... Very unhappy all good was binned......

Tasties Chinese place in Cardiff. Always a go-to

Consistently great Chinese food. Best we have found in area

Not a great Chinese... something wasn't right and cause a full body evacuation at 1:30am

First time from here, fast service, beautiful food, lovely delivery man, beautiful hand written note and free prawn crackers too - just lovely, x

Been using the Orient Express for over 20 years. Just recieved another fantastic takeaway. Price was great, all the dishes were delicious and the staff are very courteous.

Staying at a city centre hotel during lockdown, Found oriental express on just eat. Food arrived on time, got a call from a friendly delivery guy. Was really impressed with the flavour an food in general. Portion size was generous. Thank you will be coming back soon

Golpeando. Siempre llega a tiempo, la comida es deliciosa y las porciones son enormes. Siempre obtenga una nota escrita a mano en algunos rollitos de primavera de cortesía. Nunca tuve una mala comida para llevar de este lugar.

Very rude staff. Driver rang bell at 10pm to retrieve food he delivered by mistake 2 hours earlier (We did everything we could and even knocked on the neighbours' doors in an attempt to find out whose it was). When I phoned the restaurant and among other points said that it was unacceptable to call so late as we could have been asleep. She said “So?” and told me I should have kept the food in case the driver came back. I wonder why they wanted it back after two hours? Reheat and redeliver maybe?

Lovely food piping hot when delivered would highly recommend 😀

Siempre hirviendo caliente y temprano. El conductor es encantador y siempre recibe una nota de agradecimiento personalizada en los rollitos de primavera de cortesía.

Ordered chicken satay with fried rice and it was delicious. The order arrived earlier than expected and the delivery driver was friendly. We received complimentary vegetable spring rolls. The chicken satay was so nice I was craving it all week and decided to order it again. It was just as delicious the second time, and again arrived earlier than expected by a friendly delivery driver and with complimentary spring rolls. Will be ordering Chinese takeaway from here from now on. Can't fault it.

Uh, so there was a maggot just chilling in my sweet and sour sauce... how do I give them less than 1 star?😂

I’ve ordered from here multiple times via the JustEat app. I’ve been pleased by the quality of the food. Price is standard compared to other nearby Chinese takeaways. Delivery times can sometimes being long, particularly on a Saturday night but that’s to be expected at that time. The menu has a large range of items.

The food was piping hot & everything tasted fresh. Delivery came earlier than expected. Portions were generous. Driver was ok. Would order from them again. The personal thank you on the packet of the spring rolls was really lovely. That sold it for me!

Noodles were dry and bland, nice ribs and okay rice. Charged for delivery yet called out to pickup food through a car window. Wouldn't order delivery again from here.

Tried this delivery Chinese for the first time and was really pleased with it. Arrived quicker than stated, friendly driver, good portion sizes, lovely extras over £20 of prawn crackers and mini spring rolls and a sweet message, lovely touch. Will use again, recommend.

Ordered for the first time. Delivery was quicker than expected and the guy who delivered was very polite. The food was still hot. The portions were so big, we kept some back for the next day! We ordered chicken & mushroom soup and salt & pepper chicken wings to start. The wings were so moreish and served with lovely crisp vegetables. Chicken with cashew nuts was good but my partner not that keen on the texture of the chicken but tasted great. My crispy beef was yummy. We had rice and noodles and were given free prawn crackers and mini spring rolls. Definitely order again.

Best Chinese I have ever had, only place I eat

Food made me feel sick, staff was very rude and horrible. Don't buy from here!!

Horrible staff who spoke very rudely to us. Avoid!!

Misdelivered food that we accepted by mistake as we thought it was for a housemate. We checked with neighbors and it wasn't theirs. Turned out it was for an entirely different street. Two hours later the delivery driver came back asking for the food, to redeliver it, and was very rude to us. We then rang up to make a complaint and the manager was even ruder, didn't understand why it was unacceptable. Don't buy from here!

Amazing service and amazing food, definitely recommend

I been Customer this is Place for last Eight years I don’t have any issue this is the best place in Cardiff I love it and Good service and quality of the food very good. All the best 👍👌

I was not impressed with th food.Although portions are big,the food wasn’t great and the egg fried rice was bland. 1st time trying, won’t order again,sorry.

First time ordering from here and got to say well impressed with our meal. It was lush would deffo recommend. Best I have had well worth 5 ***** will be ordering from here again. :-) :-)

I was appalled by the ignorant behaviour of staff towards my daughter who suffers terribly from many conditions including a heart condition and fibro myalgia. The woman laughed at my daughter and dismissed her condition on the phone and when she eventually managed to struggle to the restaurant to show her her disability badge . My daughter was devastated by the whole experience . She has no idea of the constant , chronic pain that my daughter suffers. Behaviour like this is disgusting.

Great Chinese at a great price !! My favorite thing to get is chicken with salt and chilli which tastes fantastic with a good amount of chilli ! Delivery times through just eat are great and have never had a problem with an order.

I am a very picky Chinese eater, and I am writing this review after having tried their Singapore Fried Noodles (which is a favourite dish of mine that I use to judge the quality of the kitchen). The noodles were delicious, and tasted better than many of the other Chinese eateries in Cardiff where I ordered the same dish. What I especially liked was that they were not stingy on ingredients, and were quite generous. The prices are also quite good. Additionally, the service is good. Food is cooked quick and piping hot, and the lady at the counter is very friendly (which is a rarity at Chinese eateries. Will definitely patronise again, and I highly recommend it. (UPDATE 1): second time having the same dish. Standard is consistent and loving it. Will definitely be back for more.

Ordered from here many times and the food is always first class but the takeaway today was not up to the usual standard. Honey sauce watery and prawn crackers burnt. Will be looking elsewhere in future

Great service, very friendly, quick food even when busy. It does not have a restaurant as far as I know, it's just a takeaway! Best local Chinese in the area.

Best chinses food I’ve ever had in cardiff , i will order again

Not the best we have tasted but it was ok, not much taste or depth to the Thai red curry

I recently placed an order at Orient Express and it still hadn't arrived after an hour. As such, I cancelled the order and am yet to receive a reimbursement for the money I paid for food that I didn't eat. Please can you enlighten me to process of getting this money back or pass me to your complaints team? Kind regards, Stevie

Good quality food,would definitely order from here again

Placed an order at around 5pm, the delivery time was postponed by the restaurant until 10 to 7. It is currently quarter to 8 (at the time of writing this), and the food has still not been delivered. The restaurant is no longer answering any calls.

my food was freezing I had to microwave it

We waited just under two hours for the food to turn up. I rang and complained after an hour and a half. I asked them to cancel and refund. They did not. Being completely honest the food was average at best. There are better Chinese takeaways in Cardiff. With the delay it was a real disappointment.

Food took over 2 hours to be delivered. Was supposed to be delivered at 7:45, called them at 8 to be told “it’s on it’s way”, waited and still nothing so called again at 8:30 and told “sorry, it’s on it’s way”, then it finally it turned up at around 8:50 after over 2 hours of waiting hungrily - and it was cold and flavourless. Poor. Never again.

awful. an hour late. called to discuss, kept laughing on the phone. food arrived an hour late, and half of it was cold. won’t be ordering again.

As well as being late. The chicken dish ordered was incorrect and we did not receive free Prawn crackers as advertised on the menu

Food was really good but food was very late and woman on the phone couldn't understand enough english to look into the problem

My food was 30 minutes longer than expected, so over 1 hour 40 minutes in total. When the food arrived it wasn't hot, had no flavour and most of it was inedible. I am incredibly disappointed and require a full refund.

Food was good, however said it had been delivered when in fact it wasn’t for another 40 mins, nearly an hour later than the original time stated.

didn't get my free prawn crackers that were promised after spending over £15

EYES bigger than our belly, couple dishes between two is big enough

Food used to be lovely but tonight it was very poor. Delivery was almost an hour and a half. Has the management changed? Really disappointed .

Food arrived hot and was very tasty. Will be using again.

It took 50 minutes to get my order. When I did get it my curries were cold and instead of my rice I had chips. I phoned straight away to ask for my rice and they said they'd cook it and send it straight it out. It then took over 20 minutes to get my rice by which time it's almost too late to eat!!

Been trying to find a good Chinese while I'm a student in Cardiff and this one's good for me

The food was incredible, they gave us a free bag of spring rolls with a nice message written on. This was a nice surprise. The best part of the meal was the salt & pepper chips. We would usually order our Chinese from Peking chef but after trying the Orient Express we will most definitely be loyal customers.

The food was incredible, they gave us a free bag of spring rolls with a nice message written on. This was a nice surprise. The best part of the meal was the salt & pepper chips. We would usually order our Chinese from Peking chef but after trying the Orient Express we will most definitely be loyal customers.

Only giving 1 star to reflect how awful the driver was: very rude, I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying, came to the wrong entrance then didn't specify where he was, had to go all the way around in the rain for him just to be there waiting rather than coming along the street and back up to the hill like I specified in the first place.

Always a pleasure to have take away from here. Food is always delicious. It is now our regular Chinese. I am yet to have a bad experience and would very much like things to stay that way.

Waited nearly two hours for food to be delivered on a Tuesday evening!!

Waited nearly two hours for food to be delivered on a Tuesday evening!!

Food was really great! Slightly later than expected - total wait was 1 hour 15 mins. In fairness it was a rainy Saturday night so I bet lots of deliveries were going on! Duck chow mein was particularly good. Definitely order again.

Brilliant service. Food hot on delivery and very tasty

Brilliant service. Food hot on delivery and very tasty

Lovely food, a little late which is fine for a saturday night

My estimated delivery time was moved by 15 mins which I understand however the food came nearly 30 mins later and was only warm. I called and was told driver was on way and it was the last delivery. Not even an apology !!! Won’t be using them again

Lovely food, a little late which is fine for a saturday night

Deeply disappointed in the delivery mans attitude

My estimated delivery time was moved by 15 mins which I understand however the food came nearly 30 mins later and was only warm. I called and was told driver was on way and it was the last delivery. Not even an apology !!! Won’t be using them again

Awesome food, fresh and full of flavour. Only downside was sauce was a bit runny but hasn't put me off ordering again A+