The best restaurants serving Chinese food in Aldenham East Hertsmere East of England

Do not eat here if you suffer with allergies. First, the waiting staff could not provide an allergy menu (they do not have one - in spite of the legal requirement to be able to produce this information). Second, when we asked for a simple half a peking duck, we couldn't have this either as the restaurant fries nut-based dishes in the same oil as the rest of the other food. I ended up having a quarter duck and my partner, with allergies, just had rice... and then she had an allergic reaction. Cross-contamination is rife in this kitchen. We will not be back.

After waiting for 1 hour and 10 minutes for our food to arrive we had high expectations wrongly thinking that Paya would have been beavering away cooking our food from scratch. How disappointed we were. My wife ordered Peppercorn Salt Tofu and I had it with chicken. Both were re-fried and dried out layered in almost raw onions and carrots. I had the Chicken in Black Bean Sauce which was tasteless and gloopy, like they had just thickened a watery sauce with cornflower. My wife’s Szechuan Stir Fry Tofu was again tasteless and floating in almost raw vegetables as was her Stir Fried Mixed Vegetables. Now, I’m no Ken Hom but believe me I know how few ingredients go into making a takeaway Chow Mein Chicken. In my 60 years on this planet I had never had a bad Chow Mein until last night. Raw carrots, raw onions, tasteless and a pointless game of spot the chicken. My Pork Ribs in Sweet Peking Sauce were small, bite size lumps of gristle that resembled ribs in the same way a pebble resembles the white cliffs of Dover. In fact the only two edible items on our £70+ bill were the Crispy Vegetable Rolls and the Egg Fried Rice. In the past we’ve always received a bag of prawn crackers but not this time. We have been ordering from Paya for almost 10 years but will never do so again.