Oriental Star

The florescent glow from the Oriental Star light box cuts through dreary grey sky attracting moths and desperate human beings seeking sustenance at odd-​hours.
First impressions are inviting: open plan kitchen, lots of colourful pictures of food above the cash register, long menu, and low prices. Reminds you of a certain McDonalds doesn’t it? Only this one is Oriental!
Ambience wise, you wouldn’t want to take a hot date here unless you’ve already found an upgrade on Tinder and need a bail-​out strategy stat. The communal tables means that you’re bound to exchange glares of desperation across the bottles of soy and sweet chilli sauce with other zombies. The screams from the cashier calling out No.53 Black Bean Beef and egg fried rice is a sadly joyous moment, as you break away from the stare-​off with your fellow diners.
As you return to your sticky table attracting cold glances of jealously, the moment of truth hits: it’s so A.V.E.R.A.G.E. Limp veggies, soggy rice, questionable meats and not much effort. You look around and all you see is a room full of sad people who are thinking about cancelling their life insurance policies. I feel happier choosing meals from the fridge section in Waitrose.
A business predicated on offering convenience rather than culinary delight is never going to be a good thing. This is one of them.

Awful, do not buy from here. I recently found a long hair in my food and on top of that they sent me the wrong dishes. Oriental Star Finchley Road are appalling.

From the outside of the restaurant I was unsure when my boyfriend suggested going! Now after that first time I have been back five times and will continue to go back.
The staff are very welcome, always have a suggestion for you. The service is quick and canteen style but the food! The duck here is fantastic they have a great duck cooker onsite which you can see as the whole kitchen is open. Every time I go I try something new and still never been slightly disappointed!
Great food, pretty authentic and better than some more expensive options in the area. Do prefer take away than sit in most of the time though!

I felt the need to review this restaurant because I have never seen a Unilocal review score be so disconnected from the actual quality of the restaurant. We ordered soup, fried rice, Szechuan chicken, chow Mein and one other dish. The only one that was worth consuming was the soup… the rest we threw out. What a waste of a meal.

As far as I’m concerned, this is the best Chinese Takeaway in London.
I’ve been coming here for years and everything I have is excellent… even the sort of things you wouldn’t expect to be good, like the duck with pancakes or whatever they’re called.
I also especially like the sweet and sour prawns, called Hong Kong Prawn Balls here or maybe just, sweet and sour prawn balls, I can’t remember exactly (have them with mixed veg fried rice… all the veg they use has a fresh crunchiness). The sauce is served separately, so it’s not swimming in orange goop the way it does in most British Chinese takeaways.
Also recommend the chicken with cashew nuts… oh & the chicken with ginger.
The place is immaculate and the kitchen is open plan… because they’ve got nothing to hide.
My only gripe is that they don’t have a branch in West London… where I’ve tried and tried, but have never found Chinese food that compares with this place.
Don’t let the austere looking premises and the rather grim Finchley Rd. setting put you off (all that traffic racing past).
(& yes… the spring rolls and the seaweed are recommended too).

Late night Chinese like a boss.

It’s cheap, it’s fast, it’s good. It’s Chinese.
It kind of says it all, really.
The place feels very much like a fast-​food place, so don’t expect a comfortable restaurant. But I go there for the food, not the scenery.
Also, if you don’t know what to pick, go for the Chicken Chop Suey!

ALLOW ME TO CORRECT YOU IF I MAY KIND SIR!!! bellowed this miniature-​sized middle-​aged Scottish man who sprang up from the table, cocking himself into the bull-​terrier attack position as he wiped the remnants of the Chinese meal from around his mouth with his napkin. SHE DOES HAVE THE POWER!!!. SHE MAY NOT USE IT, BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU, SHE HAS THE POWER!!! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE **** YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!!!
Such was the force of this tongue-​lashing, that he literally took my breath away, and brought the somewhat empty canteen to an audio-​standstill. He’d been forced (as was I) to eavesdrop on the pseudo-​intellectual lecture that this other middle-​aged Englishman was relentlessly giving to the oriental owner of the Oriental Star, at the counter, and had seemingly had enough of it, feeling the need to put this other man into place and correct him on his knowledge of the Monarchy but more specifically, the powers that her Royal Highness the Queen of England actually possesses. But before he lashed out at that tilted grandfather clock that had been drowning our ears with his monotonous misinformative drool for half an hour straight, he made sure that he had gobbled up all of the Chinese food that he had laid out in front of him on his tray. Not surprising really, as the food here is truly scrumptious. This man was in the know, for both Order-​in-​Council, and Order-​in-​Oriental-​Star.
I was always aware of Oriental Star’s presence, as you can’t really miss it, being slap bang right in the middle of the Finchley Rd, half way up Swiss Cottage, right opposite Waitrose, the Finchley Rd tube station and the local southbound bus-​stop. But I never really liked it’s appearance. It had/​has a slightly cheapish, faux, tacky look to it, sort of Legoland meets Mc Donalds, plasticky appearance, reminds me of the Generation game, or like Argos for food or something The opposite of authentic, like you just got the feeling that they weren’t really serving proper Chinese food in there. Well let me tell you, never judge a book by it’s cover, as this canteen’s lousy mock-​like appearance does not do any justice whatsoever to the great quality food it serves up. Even after my first daytime meal, which I had one afternoon whilst happening to be in the area, I still didn’t really clock what this place was about; I wasn’t impressed to be honest. It was only after a few deliveries, that I started to really appreciate the quality of their food. You have to ‘get it’, if you know what I mean.
Their food is very simple, and very straight forward. You see all the familiar Chinese classics there on the menu, but all the flair has been stripped from the presentation and promise, with barely an inkling of Chinese exoticness clinging onto the kitchen’s fodder. This is where the term ‘canteen’ kicks into play It’s not really a restaurant; it’s a self-​serve canteen. You place your order at the counter and pay for it, get a little ticket with a number on it, then when your food is ready, they ding a bell and present you with a wooden tray, with nice bluey-​white oriental porcelain-​style tupperware arranged on it, containing your chosen dishes, sort of like ‘high-​school’ meets ‘Chinese open prison’ meets ‘Alan Titchmarsh’ meets ‘adult education after-​hours origami center’ on the Finchley Rd. You then carry your own tray to one of the communal tables, and start eating there. There are some great window-​seats where you can watch the hustle and bustle go by, or if you prefer, a choice of high-​perch tables and low-​perch tables. There is communal soy and communal chili sauce on each table, for you to drizzle about at will.
The food is somewhat excellent. The simplicity of each dish opens up the doors to clean, clear-​cut flavours, ones that hit all the right notes at all the right times, showcasing what each dish is supposed to really look like, and taste like, without the bells and whistles. There’s no pretentiousness here; they’re showing you how it’s done; simplistically.
Check out these dishes:
1) Singapore Noodles: They absolutely nail this one down to the spot, to a T. Light fluffy stringy yellowy noodles, scattered with the correct dosage and correctly-​sized prawn/​meat/​veg pellet-​sized filling-​ingredients. The overall taste is perfectly balanced, and moreish to say the least. Almost perfect?
2) Sweet and Sour Pork: Truly scrumptious. The pork pieces are just a bit on the small side (would be incredible to have this but with larger chunks of Pork), but the chewy batter and tangy/​fruity sauce just scores 10 across the board. Almost faultless?
3) Crispy Duck They have their own Duck-​cooking oven right there in the kitchen!!! It’s sort of like a massive cauldron-​shaped urn which they hang the Ducks in to cook over night. The results speak for themselves. Check out the Crispy Duck with pancakes, and you will find that even the quarter-​sized portion is dripping with ducky juicyness; not oiliness or greasiness may I add, just pure

3 reasons why I almost love Oriental Star
1. IT’S CHINESE FOOD!!!
2. they are very fast and convenient, I mean they have a very nice selection and the price fits the standard, and you can stand they trying to guess what all the chef’s are saying, most recently I injured my leg so it was much easier to eat Chinese when «Ke» the delivery lad was sorting me out. When I was a kid, Chinese food took a day and a half to get done but oriental star averages 15mins. and as a sometimes hungry man 15mins for good quality food gets you few stars in my book
oh and 3. its one of those places that remembers your orders, so next time they know what you like