Ascot Orientals

This in my view is the best Chinese restaurant in the locality. Fabulous soft shell crab and cod loin with yellow bean sauce, more sophisticated than a run of the mill Chinese, but reflected in the price too… very nice tables in the conservatory if you have a party of 4+ Good, attentive staff who — just as in all Chinese restaurants — are quick to top up yr wineglass !

We decided to try Ascot Oriental on the strength of Hardens. We had some friends visiting and wanted to take them out somewhere a bit more special than our usual Chinese (Beijing in Horsell or Guildford) and we couldn’t get into Thai Terrace at short notice.
From the menus on Ascot Oriental’s web-​site, we thought it sounded like they did something a bit different with more interesting ingredients than the run of the mill. Sadly the menu descriptions were where the positives ended.
Service was OK-​ish. Our tea was replenished quickly but there was zero warmth or sense of being welcome. At the end they plucked the bill folder containing (my card — sticking out so that they could see) the table without looking at us and whisked it away rather than bringing the machine to the table. When they realised it was a card, they tried to take it to a different table and have them pay for our meal :-) Errors like this can happen but this was just symptomatic of the way the staff (including the proprietor) went through the motions.
We chose the mixed hors d’oeuvres which consisted of seaweed, vegetable spring rolls, sesame prawn toast, chicken satay, spare ribs and some gyoza type pork dumplings. All standard fare bar the gyoza. These were basically OK but nothing special. The problems (which became themes throughout the meal) were quantity and value. This starter was £9.50 a head and had precisely one of each item (part from seaweed of course). Each spare rib was about 10 cm long and must have come from skinny pigs. The sesame prawn toast was a quarter slice of toast per person from a particularly small loaf. The amounts were so small that we and our guests felt uncomfortable and awkward lest we were depriving someone else — hardly the special occasion for which we had hoped.
We followed this with crispy duck and pancakes. This was fine and as one would expect but at £12.50 for a quarter duck on the pricey side.
They do a number of more interesting sounding mains, but it seems the skill is mainly in the menu writing. Sauteed lamb with ginger and spring onions was tasty. The fillet beef in oyster sauce was also tasty but fillet steak strikes me as a needless indulgence when meat is being marinated anyway especially as this pushes the price up to £16 for a small dish.
Other dishes were OK (nothing more) but noticeably on the small side (even the Singapore noodles).
A special note must go to the Thai green chicken curry. Now, it’s possible that this is more authentic and those that I have had before have not been, but it was IMHO dreadful. It wasn’t green, and had barely any flavour save that of coconut milk (had they run out of green curry paste?). I didn’t spot any mini aubergines or anything else which would suggest Thai green curry.
Unfortunately this was another abject lesson in what we’ve known for a long time but occasionally forget. Food in some of the more affluent parts of Surrey is typically poor value and often of low quality.
If you’re in this area try Siam Gallery in Virginia Water for Thai which is a bit better or hoof it to Beijing in Horsell for mainly Chinese (with some Thai dishes) where we eat regularly without disappointment — I’ll get to writing a review for that place sometime, but try the Sunday buffet (which is actually cooked fresh to order but all one price — excellent).