When you fancy a proper meal but don't want to venture out or do any washing up, there's nothing better than settling in for the night with your favourite takeaway with that show you've been meaning to watch for ages finally on. Takeaways are incredibly popular with hundreds and hundreds of restaurants and takeaways across Nottingham battling to cook for you.
Online food delivery company Just Eat has found Nottingham city's favourite cuisine is Chinese after analysing more than 10 million reviews across the UK. Chinese food in Nottingham has a popularity score of 85.35 percent out of 100, which is 8 percent more popular than Japanese, which comes in second, according to the new data.
Sweet and sour is the most popular dish, with a perfect score of 100, with the Indian curry and chicken tikka coming joint second (98.60). So with this in mind, I headed out to try the best Chinese takeaway in Nottingham, according to reviews on the Just Eat website and app.
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Looking through all the available Chinese takeaways in Nottingham city with 50 or more reviews, China Red on Nuthall Road came out on top, with the highest average rating of 5.53 out of 6 based on 95 reviews. With Nottingham's favourite dish taken into account, I placed an order of sweet and sour pork, along with a small plain chow mein.
This cost £10.60, with a 50p service charge, totalling £11.10. My initial reaction was that this is a little expensive for a Chinese, but as it's got such good reviews on Just Eat, I placed that to the back of my mind.
I wanted to see what the premises were like, so I ordered it for collection. After a short drive there, I parked up easily outside the shop front.
I entered the premises and it was empty, aside from the chefs cooking furiously away in the kitchen at the back and a young man greeting me on the till. I was a couple of minutes later than the time I was told to expect my order to be ready, and sure enough, there it was in a white plastic bag ready for me to take home.
I was met with friendly service throughout. I then raced back (while obeying the speed limits, of course) to unbox it all and try it out.
With much anticipation, I unpacked the boxes, and my initial thought was that the portion sizes are massive. If that's a small chow mein, I'd love to know what a large one looks like!
The sweet and sour pork came in one of the deepest plastic containers I've ever seen from a Chinese takeaway. That's when the prices come back into mind, thinking you do get what you pay for in terms of portion sizes.
Plating the food, and taking into account I was slightly late for the order and the time it takes for me to drive home, the food was piping hot. With steam coming off both the chow mein and sweet and sour pork, it's finally time to try it out.
Starting with the chow mein, this was so incredibly tasty, and it really did melt in the mouth. I was impressed as well that they were not too salty, meaning I wasn't gasping for a sip of drink every minute or so through the meal.
And as for the sweet and sour pork... The sauce was the perfect blend, and the vegetables used were fresh and incredibly tasty.
That brings us to the pork. My goodness... It was absolutely delicious. There's no other way of putting it.
It was so tender and, like the rest of the dish, is high in quality. It's not chewy at all.
And there's a good amount of pork - I've had sweet and sour dishes before where the meat is minimal compared to the amount of veg and sauce you get, but I'm definitely not short changed with this. This together with the chow mein is quite simply exquisite for a takeaway.
Finishing the final piece of pork, I sat back and thought about how content I was, and quite simply how good it was. My go-to Chinese takeaways are normally Wandering Dragon and Chow Chow, but this will unquestionably be in my thinking going forward.
It's worth noting as well that the takeaway included a fortune cookie. That was a nice touch and a good way to round off what had been an exceptional meal.
It featured two messages, one which said 'you will be fortunate in everything you put your hands to', and another which read 'your next interview will result in a job'.
Better hide that last one from my employer, eh! Oh, wait...
