PAYA Cuisine (Harpenden) in St Albans

Awful and expensive! First time ordering here, was so hungry I didn't check out the reviews first, bad choice! I couldn't eat the chop suey as I was worried I'd get food poisoning from the beansprouts, it smelt awful and the small taste I had was bad. I had to fill myself up on prawn crackers because the chowmein also tasted awful, the chicken and noodles just had a weird taste- I'm seriously worried I'm going to be ill after this. On a positive note the delivery man was friendly.

very bland food no flavour whatsoever. the delivery person shoved the food into my hand and called it a day. also found a hair in the noodles. do not suggest.

Lovely gaff lovely place lovely staff

Brilliant service and amazing food!

always 10/10 service and super friendly. Shout out harry.

Always consistent quality and service.

Fantastic service and great food everytime.

Fast delivery and great food!!! Thank you

Amazing service and extremely polite staff.

Great staff, very friendly and great food

Great food, great service and great chat with Harry after a night out.

Very quick service, food was as scrumptious as advertised on the menu, i recommend highly.

Great experience and definitely will come again

Took over an hour and a half to arrive on delivery which is unacceptable - avoid

Authentic Thai food. I’ve never seen my favourite dish ‘Pad Nam Prik Pao Gai’ on a menu outside Thailand but Paya had it and it was wonderful. Great staff, great food and reasonably priced. Well done. We will be back for sure. 👌🏼

The food was dry and we got pork dimsum was not edible. Honestly we tried one and we couldn't even have a second.

Ordered delivery to work a couple of times on night shift. Decided to collect this time . Food still amazing but this time I got to meet staff. Really friendly . Happy . Definitely going to keep going

Fantastic Chinese food, rivaling the better Chinese restaurants in London. This is our new go to Chinese takeaway - been twice now.

OMG… Don’t do it….. sorry I did….. 1)… hot and sour soup… SALT OVERLOAD 2). Orange chicken… tough as nsuls( usually a sign of old chicken).. and too salty Tried to talk to restaurant… no chance of talking to a live person….. Just don’t !!!!

Absolutely awful customer service. Spent 20 minutes in sub zero temperatures trying to guide a helpless delivery driver. (No help from the resteraunt) (Driver blamed the resteraunt) Food was freezing cold by the time it got here and they hang up on me when i called to explain the situation. What a waste of money. Losing the will.

Very friendly staff, quick service And quality food.

Open until 12am on week night. Friendly service, tasty food and a bit pricey but not greasy. Would go and buy again but this is a hidden place and in terms of presentation of shop, needs updating. Other than that it had great food!! Sesame prawn toast best in Harpenden! Spicy noodles new goreng - amazing and must try if you haven’t so. Nasa gore got rice spicy and nice.

Love this place! Food is great and portion sizes are fab. They've struggled to put a lid on the tub before because its filled with so much food! We normally get delivery and it's always been great and arrived 10 mins early last time.

Terrible service. Ordered delivery and they didn’t deliver part of my order. Called them up and they refused to send the order.

Refused to sell 12 containers to me for a charity event. Offer £5 for 12 and they refused. Terrible customer service and poor community spirit. Use other takeaways if possible as food is also terrible from here. Greasy and bland. There is a reason this place has the lowest rating I’ve ever seen on Google

Arrived in 25minutes and i live 15minutes away. so was it fresh? Chips were burnt and full of fat, rice overcooked and slimy and all extremely pricey for what it is. just a bog standard chinese with a top penny price list! microwave chinese from supermarket would be just as good. also they charge for delivery on top of the already overpriced food, and don’t even throw in a bag of crackers for orders over £40 which i think is rude

Great cuisine lovely food! Great service

We usually order from a different location, today was Harpenden. Singapore noodles tasty but different than the other branch. Sweet and sour soup stale, strange colour and not edible! So disappointing.

Honest to god the best Chinese I’ve ever had , food so tasty and fast delivery but honestly the taste of the food is what got me to do this , keep up the good job 👍🏽

Overpriced and undersized portions. We spent £100 and got two small bags of food.

This was the best lemon chicken I’ve had in my life. Well played.

enjoy the meal, great quality and fast delivery

Lovely Chinese food, with no MSG ,tasty and healthy .

Over priced was 40 mins late got the drinks wrong as for the food well one word Disgusting chicken ball with no chicken batter was horrible beef chow mein with next to no beef in it only good bit was the ribs wonk be ordering again anytime soon

The food was absolutely delicious. So so so tasty the beef and oyster sauce is some of the tastiest Chinese food I've ever eaten. So so good. It would be 5 stars if it was a little cheaper we brought 3 dishes and it came to nearly £35. That's a lot of money for just 2 people. Anyway the food is top notch.

Clare Booker leaving feedback, not Jason Booker. So- delivered slightly later than said, but to be fair, our house is hard to find. So- the meal was salty beyond salty- won’t order from here again

Absolutely outstanding food and service

Was put off a little by some of the earlier reviews but thought I'd give Paya a try regardless. I am glad we did. Ordered some fab vegetarian/vegan food. The mock duck, the chow main and tofu rice were super. All the food was tasty, light and not too oily as some takeaway food can be. I will certainly be using Paya in future when I want great chinese takeaway. Oh and the service when I came to collect was friendly and welcoming.

Delicious takeaway, quick service, great value!

Food is generally pretty good, but be prepared to wait a couple of hours for delivery, with no way of contacting the restaurant for an update..

Order was never delivered. After 40 minuter after expected time and a lot of call to staff not very helpful saying our food was 5 minutes to be delivered we were able to canceled. Just unacceptable.

Amazing food and helpful staff

Just had a delivery from Paya and it was absolutely delicious. It was turned around quickly, delivery driver was polite and friendly and called when he arrived. Really happy with service and food

I so enjoyed my take away the person who took my order was friendly and chatty. Small shop was clean and tidy also they advised me on certain things on the menu if I am down that end again I will revisit..the portions was plentiful. Thank you

Reviews arent great! But I had a pleasant experience with helpful staff, masks being worn and food was fresh, hot and tasty. I ordered lots of tofu and veggies. Was cooked lovely. Thank you

VERY RUDE AND OBNOXIOUS PEOPLE ESPECIALLY MANAGER!! THIS IS FOOD BUSINESS AND WITH THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOUR IMAGINE WHAT THEY DO WITH THE FOOD!! AVOID THIS RESTAURANT BY ALL MEANS AND GO ELSEWHERE!!

Really not happy with the food that I was given, the chicken balls were soggy batter it seemed under cooked and tasted like rubber. The rice was pretty flavourless and the ribs seemed to have a lot of fat on them rather than meat. The price of the food is ridiculous specially if you can’t meet up to it’s expectations. Really disappointed!!

Horrible food. Threw most of it away and paid the same price I would expect to pay at somewhere nicer. Few options during Covid but never again. My stomach is not happy with me 12 hours later

DO listen to bad reviews - the staff ARE rude the food IS bland and overpriced

Brought the wrong order, staff was rude and wouldn’t offer a replacement! Don’t order from here I would have given 0 stars if I could

Very poor quality. Watery , bland food bulked up with a lot of big chunks of onion. In this current time of Covid 19 I am very appreciative of the restaurants who deliver meals to us. However, I expect the delivery driver to protect himself and his customers. This driver took no precautions what so ever. No mask or gloves , was on the door step when I opened the door and handed me my food. I will be choosing one of the many other takeaways available in the future.

Awful. Late delivery (1 hrs, and we are <0.5miles away). Food was either undercooked, overbattered, overcooked, or tasted off. Avoid

Parking can be a problem. Beef schezuan is recommended

The last time I went it wasn't great and 4 of us thought it with different dishes. Best to go elsewhere.

Late, cold, poor quality, bland, over priced. Altogether not a great experience.

This place has amazing food, and amazing staff when you go to collect, polite and just there to do their job, but the reason I’ve chosen to give this place a four star is because while it’s an amazing place, it’s not perfect, nine times out of ten the food is great, but sometimes there is that one time where it just isn’t up to standard, to anyone reading the reviews, it’s best if you just go and find out for yourself.

Great food Me and my friends always have it

Fantastic, my favourite Thai/Chinese

This is the worst restaurant I’ve ever eaten from, the duck came green, my husband and I have been very sick with very bad food poisoning for 3 days, the quality of the food is extremely bad.Please do NOT order from this restaurant.

Didn’t deliver my bottle of drink that I payed for and then refused to redeliver it or give my money back. Not impressed

Premium prices for poor quality food. Massive amounts of onion, dishes swimming in grease. A grave dissappointment.

Lovely food.great service. Will definitely order again

Very tasty food, fresh and plenty of meat.

Possibly the worst takeaway I’ve ever experienced. We were hungry and it was quick.

Disappointing. One dish arrived cold, both dishes you needed to hunt the chicken. Prawn crackers were the best part.

THE WORST CHINESE RESTAURANT IN HERTFORDSHIRE DOES. APPALLING FOOD & APPALLING SERVICE AVOID.

Awful food. Clearly reheated & not fresh. Dry. When I called to ask no help was given.

nice food enjoy it with family...

How is this place still open!? Its got zero out of 5 on health and hygiene!!!!! Disgusting!!

Great prawn crackers but that was the best thing about the meal. I'd rather go hungry then order here again. I made a better meal than this in year 9 food tech.

Decent food but over priced. Also charged me £1 for using a debit card.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THE BAD REVIEWS Only reason i ordered for the 1st time is because jade garden was closed. Everything I ordered was perfect ! Me and my daughter loved It! Please do not listen to the bad reviews

The worst Chinese I've ever had! Tasteless, cold and expensive. The delivery driver dropped our the food on the floor in our house (splashing the walls with sauce) and left the broken bag discarded in our lawn! Seriously. Don't order from here. It's terrible!

Terrible waited for order then was told order had been cancelled reason being they didn't accept cash...

Ok The shredded beef is not great but the willingness of the staff to make sure I was happy was FANTASTIC! I explained how the crispy beef was not good & they offered alternative FOC which was excellent!! ( within 15 mins!!!) Great food ( by default ) & phenomenal customer service Definitely one to go back to but not order crispy shredded beef !! Well done customer service & great food if you don't order crispy beef !!! Jim- Harpenden

Good food but a bit over priced

Very good Chinese food mostly fresh. Large portions.

Excellent food, even after waiting for 30 minute food was still fresh and tasted amazing

Good in the past but tonight's meal was mostly inedible. Turns out they have a new chef. DO NOT ORDER FROM THE BRANCH. It was awful.

Worst food I've had very poor service food was cold and small portions I defiantly will not be eating here again

Food was ready half an hour later than we were told, and was incredibly bland across the board. Will not be visiting again.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS Firstly they didn't answer their phone, when we finally got through they told us to wait thirty minutes before heading in to collect the order. Once we arrived they had no record of our food order and hadn't got anything ready for us. Very bad customer service - we walked out and ordered the same meal at another local restaurant which cost £10 less than Paya. This place is inefficient and overpriced. Avoid at all costs!

We had a simple chicken and beef chowmein with rice looked as you would expect however there was absolutely NO flavor, and so salty to the point of being uneatable.

Food was late and cold, the worst take away food i have had

Good quality food and friendly staff all at reasonable prices. Delivery is a bit hit and miss. I usually collect.

ribs in sweet & sour sauce: sparse, tough & gristly. Sauce o.k. Special fried rice: bland with scrappy pieces of meat and miniscule veg. The few prawns acceptable; unlike the residual feeling that I had been well and truly ripped off. With a delivery charge of £1.50 for one mile the bill came to £14.40. You couldn't argue that what it says on the menu is what you get but the quality is very poor and bears no resemblance to any Chinese food I've had in the past from elsewhere in Harpenden.

Didn't even get to try the food. Ordered the meal and after two hours of waiting the incompetent driver, who was equipped with Tom-Tom, decided that it was past his shift and turned back leaving me out of pocket and still hungry. The food itself was already exorbitantly priced for Chinese and to be frank the service was disgusting. One would think that paying £5 for delivery would ensure the delivery of your meal even if it was slightly later than the quoted price. The fact that the driver had a poor grasp of the english language only served to exacerbate the problem further. Would seriously discourage ordering from Paya on the service alone and what I've seen from the other reviews you wouldn't be missing out on much in terms of quality of food.

Food was of a terrible standard, tasteless watery dishes. thai red curry was green, sweet and sour chicken tasted like a frozen ready meal. Phoned to complain and was told there is nothing wrong with the food and it always comes like this. Shocked.

Nice vegetarian dim sum.....need more options but grest fresh tasting food. Quick service too.