Sense in County Durham

This restaurant has delicious food, fresh ingredients, good taste, good service, and a friendly atmosphere. If you like delicious food, go to this restaurant.

I want to give 10stars actually. The tastiest ever Chinese food I have eaten in England. On spot! I regret I only decided to go there only on my last night in Durham. The boss/manager/cashier is very friendly and helpful. He said the chef is from SiChuan.

It was my first time visit Durham. After a 24- hour of international flight. I wanted to try some hometown food. I found this restaurant based on Google review. I asked the server what was the best dish in this restaurant that he recommends. He suggested the braised pork (红烧肉). The pork was over cooked and had no flavor. The thin portion is hard to chew. I gave him feedback and he was kindly offered to cook another one. The flavor in the second portion was heavier, but the fatty portion of the pork was sour. I wonder if it was bad. The waiter explained that the pork at England all had wired smell and it was very hard to get rid of it. It definitely did not go bad and they did an excellent job to cook it. Soon after I got back to the hotel, I had diarrhea. I am a good cook myself with over 30 years of experience and travel over 10 countries. I believe that I can tell if the food is bad or not. There were other customers sitting in the restaurant. I didn’t want to make a scene to hurt the reputation of this restaurant.so I just paid and left.

great chinese restaurant in the middle of durham town honestly really recommend having the pork + fried rice combo (soft fluffy rice with slightly sweet cut-with fork pork) ordered: egg fried rice, salted egg fried chicken, mapo tofu w fish, red braised pork belly taste: 9.5/10 service: 8/10 vibes: 6/10

To be honest, it tastes terrible.

After all, Duren Chinese Food is at the level where I can win the championship in S8. This restaurant seems to be quite normal and can barely be included in the ranks of Chinese food that is not disqualified. However, your frozen seafood is often left untasted, so it is a pity that it has 0 points.

Great place for proper Sichuan food. Yumss!

All the food is to share between people at the table. Everything was served quickly. Each chosen thing had its character.

This restaurant was recommended to us by a Chinese student. It is popular with expat Chinese students because it serves authentic food. Don't go along expecting the staples of Chinese takeaway menus. If you go with an open mind you are in for a treat. The chef is from Sichuan, so a lot of the food is very spicy (that's not a criticism ... just a friendly warning). There are, however, items on the menu from several regions of China. We'll definitely be going back.

It‘s delicious, but my classmates and I have diarrhea immediately（3h） after eating.🥹 too spicy

Good Authentic Chinese cuisine in Durham … A bit pricey compared to most Chinese restaurants in the region but delicious …

Another decent chinese food in town, portion could have been abit bigger.

Great food, service was not so good. We ordered duck rice, which came very late (when we had almost finished dinner!) By the amount of Chinese (students?) people inside which is always a good sign, I just knew that the food was going to be pretty good, it was 😁 A restaurant to recommend!

Terrible service and rude staff. I specified that I wanted no vegetables in my noodles, they didn’t listen, then when I went back to ask for either a refund or noodles without the veg they said no to both and were very dismissive.

The food are OK. It is real Chinese food that chinese would go when they have homesick.

Very good food. Taste like home more than other restaurants. Very good waiters helped me here. Food was all delicious

Some of the best Chinese food I ever had. As a student in Durham I frequently ordered from here, it's a real treat. Drove here last week though to pick up and after ordering online (with an estimated time of 10 minutes to be read) I only got the food 45 minutes later. It's also more expensive than it used to be.

We ordered delivery and were unimpressed. The hot and sour soup is incredibly peppery, almost to the point of being inedible. The special fried rice was neither special nor fried - think boiled rice with a few minuscule vegetables and shrimps stirred through. The chicken and sweetcorn soup was the best thing we ordered, and the beef ho fun wasn't bad either. Delivery, from a very surly driver, was quick but unnecessarily rude when I didn't answer the door quickly enough. I can't think that I'd dine here again.

Delicious food, Good employees & Beautiful Seabass!

Super cool person definite 5 stars

There were a lot of flies flying around while you were eating. The dish was dirty. The worst experience that I had tonight.

Absolutely disgusting we had a table booked we walked in and I genuinely thought it was a trade end it was so bad. They had double booked and so put us in this room no bigger than a cupboard. There was blue roll, bottle of cleaning product and kegs of beer surrounding the table I have never in my life seen anything like it ! So bad we walked out without even having any food! Went to a lovely place in Brandon up the road called woks restaurant which was brilliant

They have rats in the kitchen due to their refusal to use a fat trap, the food hygiene is disgusting and the customer service is shockingly bad. Would never recommend unless you want to take your life in your hands!

I hear the hygiene rating is concerning but I've eaten here many a time and never had any problems just a series of succulent Chinese meals. A cut above your run of the mill Chinese with a broad, interesting and consistently tasty menu at a fair price given the generous portions.

a great meal that will fill you up! the portions are sized wonderfully. the menu had a lot of variety. everything I ordered (vegetable spring rolls, chicken with peanuts, and egg fried rice) tasted wonderful!

Great food, been there a few times, always a pleasure. Friendly staff, food is ready quickly and it’s always delicious!

Visited Sense with our family and was immediately impressed by the number of Chinese people eating there which is always reassuring when looking for an authentic experience. The menu printed on pages of A4 paper is extremely extensive but having made our choices from the pages of options the service was quick and the portions generous to say the least. While I perhaps made the wrong choice in terms of my meal which was not quite what I was expecting my family were very enthusiastic about their food and the experience voted a big hit.

Satay sauce isn’t even a sauce and curry sauce looks curdled they are both just pure grease what a waste of money I got Shanghai chow Mein, chips, rice, satay skewers and the food was cold. 🤢🤮 (tiny portions)

I booked a table for lunch but when we arrived there were no tables set out for lunch. No excuse was given. All the time they were doing takeaway orders.

My absolute go to. Normally order on just eat, I tried it first (maybe 8/9 month ago) when I was browsing just eat hoping something would grab my attention and ordered on a whim. Never regretted it. Food comes promptly even though I live 4 miles away, and we’ve tried most dishes on the menu now, very tasty and great service

Order was still not received 40 minutes after latest estimated delivery time, tried calling restaurant several times to cancel order but just going to answer phone. Driver eventually calls to say he’s here when he wasn’t, told him to cancel order as so late and restaurant won’t answer then gets message 10 minutes later to say it’s running late. Still waiting on cancellation to be confirmed and my refund

Where to begin with this! Ordered on Uber eats where they said 20-30 mins delivery (we’re 2 miles away). After an hour the app still showed ‘preparing for delivery’ and we called. Diverted to mobile answerphone. It took over 1 1/2 hours. When we did speak to them they just said ‘sorry we were busy! What do you want us to do about it!!?’ They were cagey about what time the driver left and said the food was hot. Driver eventually arrived and said he’d only left the restaurant 10 mins ago, yet the food was Luke warm. We had to reheat everything and the salt and pepper chips were soggy and tank. Such a shame, portion sizes were good and the Kung Po Prawns were amazing once warmed to correct temperature. Just hate being lied to! There’s no excuse, makes a meal stressful and not enjoyable. Don’t recommend you ever ask for delivery!

Whilst the delivery service was swift, the food was dreadful. 1/4 duck with pancakes.....what can go wrong I ask? The duck was so fatty we couldn’t eat it . We managed just 1 pancake each with lean duck meat, the rest was just too fatty. Our main course, ordered with egg fried rice , was poor. Prawns were uncooked and the only vegetables in the dish were carrots and cucumber! I’m going to feed our local badger with the duck and prawns. We won’t order again.....so very poor!

One of the nicest waiters I've ever had

My wife and I ate in at Sense last year and it was fantastic - some of the best Chinese food I've ever eaten (and we hail from California - loads of delicious Chinese options there). The portions were huge when we ate at in. So...the fam was all sick today and so we ordered "take out" thinking we would get the same portion sizes and quality. The food was still good. However, we paid 40 quid to receive MUCH smaller portions. My advice: eat in.

This is a no frills restaurant that serves excellent authentic Chinese food at inexpensive prices. Highly recommended but best to book as it gets crowded.

Really one of the best chinese restaurant in durham. I always go there when I miss Taiwan but don't want to cook.

After reading the reviews we thought we would try this one and can highly recommend this restaurant the food was fantastic and the young lady who recommended which to have was brilliant

Delicious food made me missing Taiwan:’) Staffs are really friendly and treat us a piece of moon cake on the Moon Festival which made us felt at home! Many thanks!

I was here 2 nights in a row for dinner. I just loved what I ordered. Food was so tasty. My husband (an English man) did not like the decoration but I didn’t mind. I’d preferred good food to good decoration!! There are so many Chinese customers in the restaurant. Everything on their table looked so yummy. The portion size is big. The service is good. I just have nothing to complain about. And trust me, I’m not an easy person!

There are some updating dishes now. Best Chinese restaurant in Durham.

Just had our first take away from Sense tonight through JustEat. First class restaurant quality food. Boiled dumplings, duck pancakes and beef in oyster sauce, absolutely brilliant. Highly recommended.

Best Chinese restaurant in Durham.

Compared to last year, it seems like the portions were smaller and the taste more westernised, diluted. Mind you, this could be due to my high expectations... All in all, not bad.

Amazing food and lovely staff! I suggest asking them for their recommendations as they were spot on for us! Thank you!

Very tasty food and friendly staff. Recommended!

1st time here & it was lovely. Got our drinks order wrong but that was quickly rectified with huge apologies. Restaurant simply decorated but the food was great, especially the lemon chicken & was served very quickly. Staff friendly.Compared to last year, it seems like the portions were smaller and the taste more westernised

Atmosphere was great, food was tasty and exciting

At the risk of opprobrium from a previous reviewer I am going to use the word authentic again. Never been to China but the food here tastes (and looks) far more authentic than the multi-colored MSG fare that can be enjoyed in London's many Chinatown restaurants. We ran out a large ish bill though by not realising portion size (we were in early) was for two and therefore probably had far more food than we needed over four dishes. When a few local Chinese students sat nearby we had a beak and realised where we had gone wrong. The food though was excellent, and ample in portion. Service very good all round the only drawback being the starkness of the room. I know pictures of junks are passe these days but something (anything?) could have been done to break the monotony? An tthe echo when not full that goes with this?

Avoid. 1) Last time I ordered fish in a broth it arrived with a bundle of long blanc hair in the broth. 2) yesterday, I ordered again for some reason and it took over 1,5 hours. I live around the corner.

A friend and I regularly meet for an early evening meal and we like to try new places, often Chinese restaurants. Yesterday evening, acting upon recommendation, we tried Sense in Durham. Lots of the positive reviews use the word 'authentic' and, although I must agree with that sentiment, is it, automatically, a good thing? I've had great food while on holiday in, say, the Mediterranean, in tiny little tavernas, served on tatty plastic tables, with uncomfortable seating and knowing that it's best not to look too closely at the hygiene standards. But I wouldn't welcome that exact experience in a city back home. Such is Sense. I've never been to China but I can imagine that Sense is, indeed, an authentic representation of a small restaurant in that country. So ... Car parking is fairly easy even though, as a city centre place, there is no on-site parking; Sense is just a 500m walk from Prince Bishops car park. The outside is uninspiring, being just a dingy and tiny facade on an uninspiring street. This entrance shouts "no frills" rather than "come in here". Walking the few steps from the front door to the tiny bar / reception, you're treated to the usual 'authentic Chinese' view into a storeroom that looks like a disaster area in a crumbling building. The dining room itself is a masterpiece of what can be done without spending any money at all. The room has no external windows save a skylight; it's long and rectangular with just a few tables. Tables, seating etc is adequate (a carefully chosen word) but very far from opulent. There is absolutely no 'atmosphere' in here at all; it's just a place to eat. Even though, at 6:30pm on a Friday evening, there were only a couple of other tables occupied, one of those was a group of students who were enjoying themselves at a volume that demanded constant attention. I wonder what the volume level would be in this, enclosed, room when all of the tables are occupied. As others have said, all of the staff are young Chinese folk but, unlike others, we found them to be very friendly and helpful and service was, overall, very good. This one aspect of 'authenticity' that I welcome. It took ages for the waitress to write down our order because she wrote in Chinese (and still more neatly than I can manage in English) and we certainly found no language barrier. So far, so critical, but I know how pompous that all of that sounds and I'm a firm believer in weighting a review score towards the food rather than the dressing (although, for me, it's all about the total experience). The menu is; wait for it; 'average'. There is quite a lot of choice, including a few dishes that might not appear on other menus but some staples of a UK Chinese restaurant aren;t there. But any visitor should be able to find something here to tempt the taste buds. We ordered a chicken dish and a pork dish, with various versions of rice. It arrived reasonable quickly and was all, well, average. There was absolutely nothing wrong with these meals and the sweet & sour chicken was, the better of the dishes (I had the salt & pepper pork). It was fine but nothing exciting. Which is, I guess, both 'authentic' and 'average'. Indeed, by definition, if it was superb, then it wouldn't be 'authentic', would it? One reviewer has complained that it's expensive. I don't get that at all as our bill for two meals and two drinks was just £37 which was, I think, great value for what we had. In fact, average for a Chinese restaurant of this type. As with all Chinese restaurants, I suspect that any experience here would be better as a group, rather than the pair of us who visited yesterday evening; sharing a wide variety of dishes is always a joy. The experience for us? Average.

The food was good, but I made a mistake on an order and placed two orders by accident. they have yet to refund me! Even though they told me they will refund me. I’m disappointed

Googled and visited Sense and the Chinese food was very good. All the staff are Chinese so there is language barrier. The place is small and ambience is average with white table cloth.Its a definite visit for the most authentic Chinese food.

This was my first visit to the restaurant which Durham's many Chinese students rate as the best in the city. I ate with one of them and let her choose our meal. It worked. We shared a kung pao chicken dish (excellent), a fish stew, some green vegetables and one portion of boiled rice. Adding a pint of draft Asahi beer (£4.50 I think) and a milk tea brought our total bill to £44.30 (before tip). There were very few other customers in the 75 minutes we were there so service was good - although our vegetables arrived much later than the other dishes. I will be happy to return.

Food was very tasty and service quick. Staff were friendly. Prices were a little high but the quality of ingredients matched.

The Food was alright, but definitely overpriced. The Quantity was surprisingly small for a good Chinese place. The variety of the dishes is a lot. But the service is poor. The not-spicy ordered food was wa too spicy. I can’t recommend it.

Only 3 stars because I couldn’t find it! There’s a Japanese restaurant in the location shown on Google maps. Gutted, really fancied trying it.

1st time here & it was lovely. Got our drinks order wrong but that was quickly rectified with huge apologies. Restaurant simply decorated but the food was great, especially the lemon chicken & was served very quickly. Staff friendly.

First timer not sure what to order. We ate all the dishes that ordered. Taste good but price a bit higher than we expected. We ordered again for dinner as it was on Xmas day not much places to choose between the city.

Noticed every time we passed Sense at the bottom of Claypath always full, decided to try the new premises (in the old Rajpooth Indian restaurant) higher up Claypath. All new decor, nice white chairs, lovely white crisp table cloths. Only problem restaurant was a little...

I keep coming back to this place something like every two weeks as the quality of the food is just incredible. Every dish is so flavorful and rich, you feel like you’re truly going on a culinary trip to China! I particularly love and recommend...

After reading what the other reviewers said about portion sizes my wife and I decided to share one meal between us. We chose dumplings, enkoi mushrooms and beef in broth, boiled rice and winter melon and pork spare rib broth (soup). The price came to...

The best East Asian dining experience you can have in Durham. The pork belly was outstanding. If you're with a group, get one of the big bowls of soup and share it as a starter.

Amazing. Really good food and really big portions. VERY RECCOMENDED

I walk pass sense almost everyday and it's always full, I have been meaning to come visit some time and I am glad I did last Friday. The beef on a sizzling plate was actually sizzling, the lemon chicken had hot steam coming out, it...

We visited sense on a Thursday evening at around 7, it was pretty much full at that time and had to wait about 10 minutes, but it was well worth the wait. The food is excellent, good service despite being really busy, portions were very...

Popped in as I noticed this on passing one day. the portions are big and meant for sharing so coming here solo only meant a single dish - spicy pork belly. Next time I'll bring a crowd so I can try more Service is quire...

This place is very expensive and very dirty. The vegetarian options mostly contain pork for unfathomable reasons and those that don't are best avoided. I get the impression that this place thrives based on "authenticity" alone.

After going many times to here since it has opened as a source of comfort food, I took my mum and sister here yesterday and once again they have not failed to produce amazing food! Even the dishes I have eaten before tasted exactly the...

I have recently had the pleasure of eating at Sense Restaurant in Durham and i can honestly say that it will be my go-to restaurant for Asian cuisine from now on. Upon entering the small, yet spacious and tasteully decorated restaurant, i was welcomed and...

Myself and my husband visited sense after I had wanted to try it for quite some time now, and im so pleased we did. We thoroughly enjoyed all of the food. The portions were really big, the staff were friendly and helpful. The food was...

I used to be here several times since it opened. The chef in this restaurant is from Shanghai and have a great deal of experience. I often go there to enjoy after I visit my friends. I heard that new menu is coming out of...

Came here with my parents after reading a review posted about them on the tab for graduation. They don’t have a lot of options but they have most of the classic Chinese dishes though. But everything we ordered we finished because the taste was top...

This place was so busy everyday during term time, there used to be queues regardless what time you went. Now that it’s the summer holidays for Uni students, it’s not as busy as before. As someone who grew up with my mums cooking, this place...

My family were excited when Sense opened at the bottom of Claypath offering a more authentic insight into an otherwise Anglicised cuisine. We really enjoyed takeaway several times but were dismayed when the introduction of a new menu inflated the already high prices further. Greed...

I went to this restaurant for dinner with a large group of friends. The food is very tasty, with several good vegetarian options and nice teas. It is also not too expensive, I paid 18 pounds for a main course with rice on the side...

The food is authentic and excellent. The waiters helped us understand the menu and explained to us in English. We had ordered dumplings, fried rice and a chicken with hot chilli flake like peppers. We absolutely adored the food.The quantity is also sufficient and we...

If you want authentic Chinese, not the Anglicised stuff we normally get, then go to this place. The hot and sour soup was just fantastic, oozing vinegar and sweetness, the pepper beef was so tender it was divine and the bubble tea was as good...

One of the best Chinese restaurants I have eaten in outside China. Truly authentic experience with wonderful ingredients and dishes. The soups are simply wonderful.

Amazing food and great service. Authentic chinese food.

Really amazing food -- 100% recommend to anyone coming through Durham. Both reasonably priced and very authentic.

Really authentic and tasty food! Boyfriend and I got a few of the beef mains and they were perfectly cooked and the coconut milk is also really refreshing! The waitresses are very polite but be aware they do not have a card machine yet (as of may 2018) so be sure to bring some cash with you!

As a Chinese, I can say it offers the REAL Chinese food unlike many other Chinese restaurant in England. Very decent taste and large portion of food, highly recommended.

Food was really good and the portions sizes were very ample. The coconut milk is really nice on a warm day. Came here after my first exam of the season with my girlfriend as a treat and don't regret it one bit!

The best restaurant in Durham, and some of the best Chinese food you’ll find in England, seriously. If you like great spicy food and super friendly service, this is the please. BYOB

Simply the best REAL Chinese food in Durham. And it is excellent value!

Excellent Food! Some of the best and most authentic chinese food i have ever had. Incredibly reasonably priced. I recommend sharing a few plates! Will be back soon!

Amazing food, really authentic, very reasonable prices and substantial portions; make sure to get a few plates to share! Have been really lacking somewhere like this in Durham and so glad it's here. Definitely coming back soon