Old Kingdom Surrey Hills

A modern decor and contemporary paintings on the wall sets this branch of Old Kingdom apart from the branch in Collingwood. The Old Kingdom in Collingwood being the original branch and has a dark and old interior with teapots to match (on our visit there, we were served tea in the teapot with a chipped spout as black as a chimney. It must have been the same age as the restaurant itself). Surely the Surrey Hills branch with its new modernised look should be called the New Kingdom.

We ordered two Peking ducks which came with thin pancake crepes, scallions and cucumber for the famous wrap for $55 each. The skin was crispy and as the breed of duck used for Peking Duck dish is different, it had a relatively low fat content.

The bones are used for a spicy preserved vege soup with pieces of tofu. The soup was clear and not oily, and not too spicy either.

The duck meat was stir fried with bean sprouts but we also added two serves of noodles, one ramen and the other chow mein for an additional charge of $8 each. There seem to be more duck meat in the dishes here compared to the Collingwood branch. The noodles were tasty too. But the service leaves much to be desired.

We were waiting for the waitress to finish splitting the ramen dish into six equal portions for all of us, when she realised she had made a judgment error and there was not enough for six portions. She continued to scoop up the last bits in the dish and and presented us five bowls of noodles instead. So what's the sixth person on the table supposed to do?? Wait for us to finish our ramen while he stares at the creepy painting of amalgamed red babies floating in mid air above a city skyline?

At one point in our meal, one of us requested for a pair of chopsticks, and then quickly added a request for our empty teapot to be filled. The expression on the waiter's face was as though we had asked him to walk to Darwin and back.

I think one of the most common complaints about Chinese restaurants is the customer service. The restaurants often have the mentality that people will keep coming back if they serve good food. Unfortunately as I prefer the much more fragrant Cantonese roast duck better and do not care for waitresses who leave out a patron when serving out portions, they will not be seeing me at their restaurant again.