Lee’s, 131 Castle Road, Bedford, Beds, MK40 3RF
What is there to say about Lee’s Chinese? Well, for starters it’s one of the oldest Chinese takeaways in Bedford, I’ve visited this place since I was a small child and… it is now a shadow of its former self.
Back in the day the joint was run by (you’ll never guess) Mr & Mrs Lee (funny that) and it was great, the food was great the service was friendly. No complaints could be made. However, a few years back Mr & Mrs Lee sold up but (from what I hear) they sold up on the condition that the new owners stuck to Mr Lee’s original recipes, and they did until recently.
Gone is the MASSIVE pancake roll which has now been replaced with the odd tasting 2 x smaller pancake rolls.
Gone are the juicy sweet & sour chicken balls, now replaced with overcooked batter while the chicken seems a little bit slimy.
Gone is the sweet & sour sauce which seems to have been replaced with sweet & sour jelly (honestly, when this stuff gets cold you could turn the cup it’s served in upside down and you’d have yourself a little wobbly sweet & sour tower, I think the police could use this stuff to catch fleeing criminals or it could replace stingers as this gloop will stop a car solid in its tracks!).
The first time I noticed things had changed was a few months back and I avoided the place for a while but I do like to give places a fair shot so I went back last night to try it again just in case my previous impressions were just being tainted by the memories of the past.... they're weren't, the place really has turned to shit!
First off, I love pancake rolls and I really used to enjoy the Lee’s MASSIVE (this thing was HUGE with a capital HU, you could have battered King Kong to death with one of those bad boys and even if it broke in two you'd still have enough left to take down Godzilla.... and Godzookie!) pancake roll filled with shrimp, beef, pork, beansprouts etc. Now the new smaller pancake rolls are filled with pretty much the same stuff but the crispy coating is now a soggy mess, the pork smells & tastes a little bit funny, the bean sprouts are no longer crunchy and the beef seems to have buggered off back to the fields (lucky escape for the beef I say, if you're gonna die to feed someone you at least want to end up somewhere you'll be appreciated).
The sweet & sour chicken balls as I mention before have seriously dropped in quality and every time I took a bite I could feel a soft sliminess which then puts the thought of the chicken not being cooked properly in to your head so every bite comes with a dirty thought and each dirty thought puts you more & more off what you’re eating (never a good sign when it comes to food).
The only thing I didn’t really have an issue with was the mushroom rice, the mushrooms were perfect and the rice was pretty good (although still a decline in quality from what came before).
Sadly Lee’s is Lee’s in name only these days and it’s a name that has now been sullied by the ever declining quality in its product…
Perhaps I’m living in the past but if this is the future of Lee’s then all I want to know is where’s the Delorian? I wanna go back!
What is there to say about Lee’s Chinese? Well, for starters it’s one of the oldest Chinese takeaways in Bedford, I’ve visited this place since I was a small child and… it is now a shadow of its former self.
Back in the day the joint was run by (you’ll never guess) Mr & Mrs Lee (funny that) and it was great, the food was great the service was friendly. No complaints could be made. However, a few years back Mr & Mrs Lee sold up but (from what I hear) they sold up on the condition that the new owners stuck to Mr Lee’s original recipes, and they did until recently.
Gone is the MASSIVE pancake roll which has now been replaced with the odd tasting 2 x smaller pancake rolls.
Gone are the juicy sweet & sour chicken balls, now replaced with overcooked batter while the chicken seems a little bit slimy.
Gone is the sweet & sour sauce which seems to have been replaced with sweet & sour jelly (honestly, when this stuff gets cold you could turn the cup it’s served in upside down and you’d have yourself a little wobbly sweet & sour tower, I think the police could use this stuff to catch fleeing criminals or it could replace stingers as this gloop will stop a car solid in its tracks!).
The first time I noticed things had changed was a few months back and I avoided the place for a while but I do like to give places a fair shot so I went back last night to try it again just in case my previous impressions were just being tainted by the memories of the past.... they're weren't, the place really has turned to shit!
First off, I love pancake rolls and I really used to enjoy the Lee’s MASSIVE (this thing was HUGE with a capital HU, you could have battered King Kong to death with one of those bad boys and even if it broke in two you'd still have enough left to take down Godzilla.... and Godzookie!) pancake roll filled with shrimp, beef, pork, beansprouts etc. Now the new smaller pancake rolls are filled with pretty much the same stuff but the crispy coating is now a soggy mess, the pork smells & tastes a little bit funny, the bean sprouts are no longer crunchy and the beef seems to have buggered off back to the fields (lucky escape for the beef I say, if you're gonna die to feed someone you at least want to end up somewhere you'll be appreciated).
The sweet & sour chicken balls as I mention before have seriously dropped in quality and every time I took a bite I could feel a soft sliminess which then puts the thought of the chicken not being cooked properly in to your head so every bite comes with a dirty thought and each dirty thought puts you more & more off what you’re eating (never a good sign when it comes to food).
The only thing I didn’t really have an issue with was the mushroom rice, the mushrooms were perfect and the rice was pretty good (although still a decline in quality from what came before).
Sadly Lee’s is Lee’s in name only these days and it’s a name that has now been sullied by the ever declining quality in its product…
Perhaps I’m living in the past but if this is the future of Lee’s then all I want to know is where’s the Delorian? I wanna go back!
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