Paya Oriental in St Albans

Drove down from Northumberland to visit family in Harpenden. After 6 hours in the car just wanted some quick hot food and so we passed here and tried it. Quick service, good portion sizes and nice enough food. We didn't sample a great deal of the menu, but kids enjoyed their chow mein and my Singapore noodles was good. Free prawn crackers and a friendly guy serving.

Ordered a take away from Paya in Harpenden. I found a rubber band in my prawn black bean sauce 🤢, called Paya, no apologies, I wasn’t going to drive back there so they sent someone with a replacement. We also ordered a sweet sour chicken and chow mien dishes which weren’t great either. Will never order from this place again.

Ordered 2 things? Plain chow mein and crispy seaweed, come to just under £15 for these two dishes, not even any meat so not sure why so expensive… also when food brought out not even any prawn cracker’s after spending this amount.. always get free prawn crackers when I go elsewhere and spend above £10… don’t think I’ll be back again

Ordered food online for delivery, order was confirmed by email and we also immediately received an activation email from the take away itself. An hour later, still no food. It normally takes them 15 minutes to make it if you go to the take away yourself. Called them, they said they hadn't sent it yet, no apologies whatsoever. Cancelled order. Called credit card company to ensure we won't get charged.

a lovely restraunt with great food and friendly service the staff are so friendly and always give out free prawn crackers

We were happy with the food though it was more expensive than other Chinese takeaways we have had locally. It was delivered on time.

Fancied a Chinese for locked in Mothers' Day and restricted for choice at lunchtime so ordered from Paya for first time. Received a phone call 20 minutes before pick-up, ready on time and safely packaged and stayed hot for the walk home. . The food was exactly as ordered, good portions and very tasty. Will use again.

First time order against my better judgement. Didn't expect much, but the food was truly awful. Mostly onions swimming in a pool of oily water. Never again, a complete rip off.

The starters were reasonable, but not exciting. The main course, Szechuan Beef, was pink in colour, tasteless and had no crunch. It had vegetables that would not have been out of place behind my fridge and were over-cooked. Waste of money: never eating there again.

The treatment we had from the man working in this Harpenden branch was disgusting. It is lockdown so we wanted a takeaway. We are a mixed couple, hubby is black. The boy quickly barricaded himself behind the till as if he was going to be robbed (typical) and didn't even greet my husband. When hubby tried to order the meal of his choice, he was told that he couldn't do that meal( we have ordered it about 6 times) that they have never had this meal ( it's on the menu)?? When hubby said "but I have had that meal before" the man replied "I've never seen you here before and I have been working here 5 years." So I told him where to go, and I also told the gentleman behind us who was also black how rude they were. Strangely he was also in and out very quickly and we all ended up at Simmons! Thats 3 orders lost in 5 minutes, how stupid. And going forward a lifetime of zero orders from us!

Ordered on a Saturday night at 6.30 - food was eventually delivered at 9.30 after much chasing! Greasy, overpriced, stodgy food. Ordered from here against my better judgement... will stick to Oriental Aroma in future!

I like this place as it sells both Chinese and Thai food so good to be able to order both at the same time. I have only ever had the thai green/red curry and the chicken chow mein from here. Both the thai green and thai red curries are really tasty from here. The chicken chow mein is ok but needs more flavour as can sometimes be bland - but at least it's not greasy.

Yeah, they're okay. I live in Redbourn and they deliver so if I want Chinese, oriental or Thai cuisine desperately but don't want to drive, they're a good option. Unfortunately, if I am happy to drive, just a few doors up the hill lives Oriental Aroma which delivers (not literally) really good Chinese food. I tend to prefer places that specialise in one cuisine and gets it right but as I said, if you're not too fussy, or don't know what excellent Thai or Chinese food tastes like, PAYA is a good option.

Wish I’d read reviews on here before we ordered ! Phoned up at 5.30 and booked a delivery for 7.30. After multiple phone calls, our food finally arrived at 8.30 - the excuse ? We got busy and did their orders first. They couldn’t care less about customer service. I’ll never order delivery from them again, do yourself a favour and avoid them at all costs.

I have ordered few times and the food is great, the service is quick. So I highly recommend the place !!

So awful! Avoid at all costs. Arrived after an hour and a half, food had clearly been microwaved and had ZERO taste to it at all! Refused to refund us for the late delivery and appalling quality of the food. DO NOT ORDER from here!

I’ve used them 3 times now. Once for delivery and twice for collection and each time I’ve found their food to be excellent !! Especially the Green & Red Thai curries. I really don’t understand why this takeaway has so many bad reviews ?

In the middle of eating my take away I bit on something that nearly broke my tooth. Spat out my mouthful to find what looked like a small black pellet. Paya would not refund the meal and no apology given. Have reported them to the health and safety . They will be inspected soon I hope. Disgusting food safety and even worse disgusting front of house female. Rude and arrogant. Food very greasy and I will never buy food from them again. Looking at all the terrible reviews it would appear they dont give care. be very wary of this take away.

As the most expensive restaurant around you'd expect the quality to reflect. The food was actually the worst I've ever had. Also tiny potions - we had 3 spare pancakes as we ran out of duck, which means an 8th of duck cost us £10. If you're looking to spend this kind of money on duck I'd recommend going to the King's Head in Ivinghoe - it's probably cheaper. This was the first takeaway evening that ended in a packet of crisps.

We have lived in Harpenden for 5 years and have only just had our first Chinese TA from Paya Oriental. We ordered Vegetable Sweet and Sour, Egg Fried Rice and Prawn Toast with a bag of prawn crackers. Oh my goodness. Never had such delicious Sesame Prawn Toast. The sweet and sour was not as sugary as other take aways but this is good, is was lovely. Delivery said 45 minutes and was 20 minutes early. Food was hot. Will order again, Thank you!

Arrived an hour and 10 minutes late. Cold unappetising and tasteless. Delivery driver said the restaurant has had too many bookings- don’t take them if you can’t fulfil them.

Ordered a takeaway this evening for two adults and two children, really nice food but expensive for ungenerous poetions and no complimentary prawn crackers was disappointing!!

Awful service over 3 hours for the food to be delivered. Won’t be ordering again from there ! Never had such poor service from a company

Not great. Long hair in the boiled rice. Poor chow mein and disappointing Char Sui. Service was quick and friendly but expected much more for the price.

Waited 2 hours for food and ended up buying food elsewhere ... Don't bother .. just read food reviews.. give it a miss

Poor customer service, tried ordering through the website, but they could not take card payments - this is the 3rd time we have ordered and everytime an issue !

I wish I could give this zero stars! £58 worth of food arrived two hours after ordering and the whole lot went in the bin. Absolutely disgusting. Everything smelt slightly of fish, even the chicken and the rice was so overcooked it was basically a block of white soup. Tried to call to cancelled after 1 hour 50 and the phones off the hook. Tried to call to. Complain, same story. The delivery driver said they always take the phone off the hook when they are busy. Avoid at all costs.

This place is out of this world. I have never put anything as mouth-wateringly tasty on my pallet. The chicken chowmein was insane and the sticky beef was lethal. This place is a massive success and I can imagine that this place is going to go to places in the future. The staff are unbelievably good with instant service and amazing personalities. Our driver even offered me and my kids his 11” shlong which I kindly accepted. If you are looking for somewhere to go then definitely go here, trust me. If you don’t go here there will be consequences. Thankyou for giving me the experience of a lifetime and I am going to come back again for sure.

oh my f**********g god!!! this is the most insane chinese restuarant that i have ever eaten at - the food was mouth wateringly delicious, and the service was instant and of a brilliant standard, and better yet the food was fast to be delivered, and cheap as dirt for the excellent quality! i love paya so much and i eat here everyday

One evening we decided to have to check out the take away and decided on Paya Oriental. The ordering was done through JustEat, which was seamless! The food was ready to pick and on time!

The claim is MSG and additive free food which is great but some of the dishes were average in taste and contants

No idea how this place is still open. If you google it the food hygiene rating is ZERO. On a scale of 0 - 5. Disgusting food.

By far the worst Chinese takeaway I’ve ever experienced , sloppy tasteless mess , slow service. All went in the bin

Tasteless and expensive, very disappointed. Noddles undercooked water like, sweet and sour sauce ribs cooked well but again no taste

Order from here off justeat all the time. Best Chinese on there. Delivery takes awhile but no biggie. Always happy

This is without a doubt the worst Chinese takeaway I have ever eaten. Tasteless, gruesome slop !!! Looked unappealing from the start. Avoid at all costs. Prawn crackers are ok though !! That's why I gave it one star !!

The most disgusting food I have ever witnessed! Glutenous, gelatinous, tasteless slop. This is not even food, let alone Thai! My husband and I had not eaten all day, and it remained that way, even after the food had arrived. Avoid at all costs.

Tasteless plastic food. Bright orange greasy gloopy sweet and sour. Rice so sticky you could build walls with it. Chicken satay was sliced cooked meat stirred into aforementioned gloop (beige this time !). £40 in the bin (food recycling bin of course !!)

We ordered almost £50 worth of food as we hadn't eaten all day - however, this did not stop us from leaving the majority of the food we ordered as it was DISGUSTING!

we have previously ordered and not liked but when we ordered last it was dry like I'm not Gordon Ramsey but the food was crap dry stuff was soggy soggy stuff is dry and i'm really disappointed with the paya I got

We booked through just eat, it was late we had to phone to see if it was coming and the food was awful. Dry chow mein and chicken curry which was Bistow and dry tofu. Please don’t waste you time and money.

I have ordered food from Paya in the past and the food was nice. Today however the food was unbeatable. The chow mein tasted like bullion with overlooked noodles, awful. The soup tasted like a lemon, chicken rubbery, prawns were swimming in an oil. I have called them and instead of apologetic conversation I have received extremely, extremely rude opinionated, disrespectful and aggressive answer. I am shocked and will never order from Paya again.

We do not order fast food very often and I also do not write reviews about take away food, but this time I’ve decided to do so, just because I can’t not believe this lovely place has so many bad reviews!!

An hour and a half to get your food delivered and it doesn't look anything like thai food. Horrible taste: coconut rice overcooked and not a real coconut one, green curry: how on hell do you manage to do something that sticky ??? Tom yam soup: you probably need to fly to Thailand to understand what is a tom yam soup ... Never again so disapointing.

Bought a meal for 5 people so not cheap. Used to be a regular so was not expecting such poor...

En realidad, yo me preguntaba si recibimos la orden correcta. Pedimos 4 platos vino a £30 que no es la más barata y algo estaba equivocado con cada plato. Quién pone carne desmenuzada crujiente chili en una cama de lechuga iceberg? Por lo tanto, no estaba crujiente. . El calamar. No tenía que cubren era como comer los remolinos sin cocer la pasta, no puedo empezar en el chow mien. . Fue en mal! ! ! ! No se tirar otro 30 libras en la papelera

Intenté dos veces y en ambas ocasiones la comida era terrible. La última vez llegué a casa y la mayoría de la comida fuimos en la papelera.

Ordered Thai green curry takeaway with sides. Disgusting food - was creamy salty nothingness - avoid!

Last time I ordered here, I swore never again. Shame I forgot. Ordered Cantonese duck, the sauce it was in was just gelatinous water with food colouring-absolutely no flavour whatsoever. Crispy shredded beef, absolutely no hint of beef in it, just strips of batter essentially. And just smothered in chilli, no sauce to speak of. Worst I've ever had, and it's been this way past few times we've ordered. Portions are tiny (1/3 of elsewhere), bland, disgusting. Won't ever be going back. Total waste of money.

Horrendous service. Orders was delivered 50 minutes later than expected. Chicken noodle dish had no chicken. I complained but was told the dish was made with "chicken flavored" noodles. Total rip off. Avoid at all costs.

Portions are tiny and expensive (£5.45 for prawn toast and you get 4 tiny squares)Honey glazed ribs were completely dry with no "glaze", portions were all 1/3 of the size smaller than other chinese take outs.On top of this, for the first time ever in my history of ordering chinese take away and spending best part of £40 there were no complimentary prawn crackers!!!Avoid, there's plenty of other better take outs in and around Harpenden!

Just ordered £65 worth of takeaway here. The delivery was 30 mins late, they missed part of the order and the amount of food we got was abysmal. Won't be using again. Suggest you avoid.

Ordered takeaway on the phone. When we went to collect we were told we could have got 20% off by ordering on line but only through other companies such as Hungry House. Very annoying to be told you have paid too much and confusing.The meal was below average and they forgot my rice but gave me a dry chicken dish instead. Given the order was only for 4 dishes in total, it was very poor. The rice couldn't be delivered for 45mins so I gave up. Far too difficult for a simple takeaway.

Visited the shop this evening to order a take away. Service was slow, we were charged £1.00 to pay by debit card, although the bill totalled £16.00, no complimentary prawn crackers and portions very small. Would have visited the Chinese up the road but unfortunately it doesn't open on a Monday. Won't be visiting again I'm afraid.

Ordered it tonight, 6 small dumplings (VERY salty) were £6.00 and a Tom Yum prawn soup was £6.75!!! A very small portion and so salty it was inedible. Garbage food. If I wasn't feeling lazy I would've marched it back for a refund.

How refreshing to look at a take away menu and discover that as a vegetarian, you can choose almost anything! All dishes are made to order from a choice of meat and/ or sea food but also Tofu.Most takeaways and restaurants cater for meat eaters but vegetarians may have just a couple of vegetable dishes to choose from.We love the massaman curry and noodles. It is so fresh and tasty and really friendly staff.

Have had a several deliveries from paya and it was very good when first opened... No more!Last few takeaways have got progressively worse, tonight's was ordered at 6.30pm for an 8pm delivery.... Arrived at 8.25pm.... Food was sparse,Luke warm and soggy. The only thing paya Harpenden has going for it is the lovely friendly delivery driver!Avoid!

The delivery was on time but the food was mostly awful. The duck was cold and looked and tasted like it had been around for ever and the seaweed had too much sugar in it. The prawn wontons were greasy and it was hard to detect any minced prawns. Over all a poor experience that I will not repeat. It is a pity, given that Paya are prepared to deliver a few miles out of Harpenden.

So disappointed. Having ordered from paya on average twice a month for past six month we placed an order for delivery tonight at 7.45pm. We were advised a delivery time of 45 to 55 minute. One hour and ten minutes later I rang to be told it would be delivered in next 5 minutes. It arrived 15 mins later and food was Luke warm at best. I then rang to complain to be told that is strange order had just been cooked before delivery. We live 5 minutes away. I returned to the take away with order and lady was on the phone and gave a look . The man was nice but she coldly said take food back and give money then questioned if we wanted more food . I work in retail and appreciate things go wrong however the way in which we were treated was appalling. Very disappointing service .

Ordered a takeaway to be delivered. Prompt and the food was hot enough and tasty. £2 delivery charge which I could not find on the menu but no matter.

We love Thai food and decided we would give these guys a shot since we had just moved to Harpenden. Each dish was bland, a bit over cooked and in all honesty quite unpleasant. Ribs were so dry that they tasted weeks old and the Pad Thai was just a tub of brown sauce. We won't be ordering from Paya again, unfortunately.

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!

I ordered using the app. The charge was higher than expected. I contacted the restaurant using an e-mail and also their own feedback request and they have not bothered to respond so I'll try somewhere else.The food was okay but the delivery time was longer than the app suggested

Ordered through Hungry House - restaurant didn't respond to order yet money was still taken. Hungry house called them 3 times as did I. Absolutely no answers - despite everything showing they are open. It wasted my time delay my dinner and I resorted to a Chinese takeaway which knew what it was doing

We tried this place last night for the first time as the Oriental Aroma seems to have changed into some other kind of takeaway place. We weren't expecting too much but were very pleasantly surprised. The service was quick and when we got home we found the food had been very well packaged.The szechuan beef was nicely chewy without being brittle and tasted delicious (a nice bite of chili that isn't overpowering). The chicken balls with sweet and sour sauce were spot on and the egg fried rice was gorgeously moist. It also came with a very generous bag of prawn crackers thrown in (sadly we don't eat them so we'll ask for them to be left out next time - do birds eat prawn crackers?).

We phoned our order through and then went down to collect. We were a little early so had to wait a few minutes. The food was fresh and the service was friendly. I particularly enjoyed the coconut rice.

phoned to order a take away and gave feedback that the Dimsum last time was not very nice. When it arrived the driver was sooooo rude huffing because I wanted to pay for the remaining balance by card. He insisted it was cash only and wanted to wait on the doorstep whilst I paid. I said I was not happy, to which he replied 'I am not happy and neither is my boss as we don't like giving food away for free' - I could not believe his rude and aggressive manor. I gave the food back and informed the driver I will NEVER be using their services again. The manager sent the food back with a different driver so I paid the bill and had the meal in the end. Disgraceful. I have been a loyal customer for years but will now take my business elsewhere. NEVER again!

I was shocked to read the poor reviews and can only assume that all the happy customers are too busy enjoying their food to write a review!We love this place and use it very regularly for collection and delivery. The food is always great, no complaints ever and the staff are always really friendly.I couldn't recommend it highly enough!Enough already, my food is getting cold!!

Ordered a takeaway for my birthday. Wanted Chinese / Thai mix so Paya looked perfect. £35 for a very bad takeaway. Thai curry wasn't anything like a Thai curry and the other 2 dishes were very bland, full of onion and tasted the same despite being very different dishes. Dim sum starter for £10 - completely overpriced and tesco do a much better version. Will never be using Paya again.

New Year's Eve 2014 my wife had an operation, picked her up from hospital late evening and decided easier to get a takeaway delivered. Called paya and the rudest man told me that all though they have all ways delivered to my address that they where not delivering to my address tonight?? I told the man on the phone about my situation with my wife and he said that it wasn't his problem!!!!

Noodles swimming in gravy ?? bone dry crusty over cooked ribs , sea weed pre cooked the day before and re heated in 2 day used oil . All went in the bin and complete waste of money ! Never again , bad attitude when calling to explain .

I've ordered from Paya for delivery a few times now, but after this last order I think I am finally done. I really only ordered from them since they were one of the only take-aways that would deliver to us outside of town. However, delivery is often very slow and the food has never been very good.The last order arrived 1.5 hours after the order was placed, the noodle dish was wrong (chicken instead of beef) and the noodles themselves were complete mush, and the fried shredded chicken was very tough and the sweet chilli sauce was syrupy and horrible.Sorry, Paya. I gave you many chances, but I have to draw the line here.