Bring Your Own Water…read more
I have eaten here twice and after the second time I will never return to this place again though it is just around the corner from where I presently reside. Chong Tsing Taste wraps itself up nicely in a bleached white nouvelle cuisine ambiance, giving the allure of trying not to be a typical Madrid Chinese restaurant, but something more upscale. Unfortunately it just isn't, and given how my last meal abruptly ended there it is actually worse much worse. My first beef with this place, the restaurant is about as sterile and welcoming as the hospital facing it across Valle de Súchíl. Start with the menu, if you want to call it that, for lack of a better word I guess. Anyhow the stack of paper dropped unceremoniously in front my son and myself was a lovely collection of photo copies. It resembled more of a badly thrown together science project from a child in grade 4 and spat out from a printer circa 1997. I did appreciate the nice modern touch that they bothered to print it in color, no doubt a nod to wooing the Millennials. Naturally, such an exquisitely presented menu is charged full of all sorts of stunning dishes, perhaps, yet after a while of staring at the 19 pages of photocopies held together by a paper clip, with the assorted pictures of random dishes laid out as if blasted onto the glossy pages from a shot gun, all blends into one colored mass of "I don't know what to order..." and almost numbly lulling you into a random finger pointed selection. The food is decent, portions are standard. The service adequate, yet as welcoming as the overall ambiance. I do not think there has been a smile in that building since Franco died, even the standard clichéed waving cat figuring felt like it was frowning at us. Anyhow, this is already more words than this place deserves at this point. So the great coup de grâce, besides the indifference oozing from every corner was what occurred after ordering a fairly spicy dish of beef. I asked for 2 glasses of ice water specifying from the tap. The waiter returned only to inform me that he could only serve me bottled water, that he was not authorized to serve tap water. I am so sorry Mr. Waiterman, please bring me the bill immediately. After thousands of restaurants from all cultures around and across the globe, this is the first to deny me a glass of tap water and is so offside and of a level of ridiculous that I had to pinch myself to make sure I was not waking up in a seat on a Ryanair flight. All the more thirsty as well, as we had started the meal asking for a couple of Ice Teas (Lipton, Nestea, Trina, whatever...) but our waiter had promised us special ice teas exclusively from exotic China. Fine we went along for the ride only to be presented with a coal enriched glass of the liquid fructose which we laughingly forced down and left half unfinished. Save your Eurodollars as there are plenty of restaurants of all Asian stripes in Madrid that outdoes this place. Avoid this one like the plague, a resounding two thumbs down and might you be left with no other choices make sure you bring your own water.
