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Everything’s just OK at Kowloon Chinese Restaurant


Kowloon Chinese Garden Restaurant

Nginyo Towers, CBD

The Kowloon Chinese Garden Restaurant was rather confusing at first. They seem to have rebranded several times, and thus the name has changed many times.

But regardless of what the name is, it really is a garden restaurant. You can find it on the 2nd floor of Nginyo Towers in the CBD, right next to Nakumatt Lifestyle facing Koinange Street – which means that yes, parking is going to be difficult.

What is interesting about this particular restaurant is that though it is inside a building, it is built to feel like it is actually in a garden, as the name implies.

You enter the room which opens up into old school ceramic –tiled floors with huge windows that you can look out onto the street through.

You can tell from the feel and the architecture that it is an old and semi-historic place. Even the waiters have that slight shabbiness of an ancient institution that has not really moved along with the times.

Another sign of the throwback feel of this place is that fact that it clearly has a loyal clientele. We were there for lunch, and people were streaming in from about 12:30 in a steady flow till about 2 pm.

When we left, we left people still at the restaurant, enjoying their (typically Kenyan) extended lunch hour.

I was hungry and could not wait for us to order and then wait again, so to stop the gap, I ordered a spring roll before our meal. It was not the greatest spring roll in the world, but it did its job.

We decided to eat the Beef Fried Rice and Chicken with mushrooms, which cost an average of 600 KES and 700 KES respectively. I do not think that the food was worth the price, whether regarding portion size or taste.

The beef fried rice was ok, the chicken and mushroom was ok, but I was expecting more of this establishment than ok.

We also had fresh juice which we downed fast because it was a hot day – though the fresh juice, as usual, had sugar added to it, which is one of my pet peeves – unless it is a bitter fruit that actually needs sugar added to it, why add sugar at all?

How is one supposed to stay healthy and keep diabetes away if everyone keeps adding sugar to everything as if lifestyle diseases were a myth?

I was also not impressed with the service, though it was not terrible – it was, much like the food, ok. The food came quickly, as did the waiters, but their customer service – in terms of friendliness, enunciation and ability to communicate, I felt, was lacking.

All in all, it was a rather blasé experience…unfortunately.

In other news, Home and Living Magazine is sponsoring the Homes Expo at Sarit Centre and will be introducing members of its team to the public, as well as holding exciting seminars on subjects like how to pair food and wine and food art.

The Expo starts on the 14th of May and ends on the 18th of May.

I’m going for the wine…