Dubai Restaurant Review: Szechuan Palace, Ramada Hotel Al Barsha

In a nutshell: Fantastic value for money set menu with good but not mind-blowing food.

3/5 (but 5/5 for value)

It can be a bit awkward finding the building you want in the tower block area of Al Barsha but luckily that's not the case with the Ramada Chelsea Hotel Al Barsha, which is right opposite the Emirates Bank building. The hotel has 5 outlets and we had opted for the Chinese restaurant, Szechuan Palace. The decor was the usual dark wood and red that most Chinese restaurants seem to go for, they could just do with a bit more artwork or something to absorb sound because it was quite echo-y. In addition to the main body of the restaurant, they have 2 private rooms and since we were a party of 7 we had booked one of them. There is a risk sometimes with a private area that you could be forgotten, but we had very attentive service the entire evening as our banquet rolled through.

Szechuan Palace offers an a la carte as well as set menu option. Everything that's on the set menu plus a few more items are available a la carte, they also offer a steamboat which is the only restaurant I've been to with that on the menu. A steamboat is a Chinese fondue where you cook your meat and veg in little baskets in a pot of stock and then at the end you have a really flavoursome soup to finish off with. We went for the set menu which included unlimited house beverages - at AED 129 per person it really is value that is rare in Dubai. The drinks included bottles of Stella and Becks, so not just pints of cheap and nasty beer, as well as wine and the usual spirits.

There was a choice of 4 soups, 8 appetisers, 8 main courses and 4 desserts. You weren't limited to one item from each course, though, and could have as much of anything as you wanted. Everything is cooked to order, which I always prefer since you never know how long buffet food has been out for and what bugs might be breeding away in the warm, damp atmosphere! There is a distinct Indian influence though, with all food categorised as Vegetarian or Non-Vegetarian (i.e. includes meat). Our one comment to the manager was that the food should be served in hot dishes and that the plates provided to diners should also be hot since we found it did go cold quickly and when you have loads of dishes on the Lazy Susan for everyone to help themselves, they need to stay warm.

I started with a wonton soup which had lots of fresh vegetables in but the stock itself was very bland. We had numerous appetisers to share, including spring rolls, mixed mushrooms, crispy lamb and crispy chicken. All the appetisers were fried so although they were tasty, I couldn't eat a huge amount since I tend to feel a bit nauseous when I have too much greasy food. The mains then arrived and I took a little bit of everything since we couldn't remember what they all were. The Chinese vegetables and the stir-fry chicken were both very nice but I couldn't eat the beef as it had a very strong flavour, I actually thought it was lamb - nobody else seemed to have an issue with it but I quite literally could not swallow it. Of all the courses, I was least impressed with the main dishes although everyone else really enjoyed them. The choices for dessert included a date pancake (pancake with mashed dates in the middle), creme caramel and fried bananas. I had seen lycees on the main menu and they were happy to give me that instead of the set menu options; tinned lycees but still very nice.

In terms of the food, it was perfectly adequate but it just didn't come up to the standards I've found in other places - most recently at PF Chang's. In terms of cost, though, it is amazing value since a drink alone is around AED 30-35 and during a 4 course meal you can drink considerably more than 4 drinks which pretty much means your meal is free! Even if you're not wanting a boozy night, a 4 course meal in most other places would cost in the region of AED 200 plus any drinks so whichever way you look at it, your money is being well spent. I fancy returning to try the steamboat - I'll avoid the beef this time though!