When I moved to Hyderabad, everyone recommended this restaurant to me. My favourite restaurant in Madras is The Cascade and I was told that since I like Chinese food, I would love Nanking. This restaurant is situated on Park Lane in Secunderabad.
A friend (who had heard as much about the place as I) and I went to Nanking one Sunday evening. We had no reservations and were prepared to wait. We spent 45 minutes outside the restaurant waiting to be seated. I took that as a good sign of popularity. Finally we were seated, but side by side. The tables were arranged in a classroom like fashion and only those tables that could seat 4 or more people had chairs on both sides of the table.
Once inside, I realized why we had to wait 45 minutes. It took more than 15 minutes for us to get a menu card. Another 15-20 minutes before our order was taken. And then about half an hour before our soup came along. We had ordered vegetable spring rolls as starters and these did not make an appearance at our table despite repeated requests.
Our main course arrived about 10-15 minutes after we had finished our soup. And when we were about to finish our meal, the spring rolls sprung out out nowhere. I asked the waiter to take them back as we had no intention of eating them as dessert, but he told me that I had placed the order and had asked him about it several times and so it was wrong for me to return it. When I asked to meet the manager, I was told he wasn’t available. My friend was treating me to the dinner and didn’t want to make a fuss, so we paid the bill and left.
The food itself was average, nothing great. I’ve had better Chinese food at the roadside ’’Chinees’’ stalls in Bangalore. The service was extremely poor. And nothing about the restaurant was worth the trip across the city or the wait.