The Welcome Restaurant

My wife and I dined here the other night. We were pleasantly surprised how good this place was because we know that good Chinese restaurants are hard to come by. We called to book a reservation with no problem. It’s street parking which, we have learned whilst in Belfast, isn’t the best. Thankfully we found a space not too far away. The restaurant itself is quite fancy looking. They have a cool ceiling. The place is of reasonable size with plenty of tables which are adequately spread apart so you don’t feel that you are too close to any neighbouring diners. The service was excellent. The two ladies that served us were on the ball. They were always busy but seemed to have everything under control. They were also very pleasant. Normally Chinese menus are exhausting to read through and it’s nearly impossible to decide. However this menu is a great size. It provides variety but it isn’t overwhelming. I was naughty and got 2 starters. I got the duck with pancakes and hoisin sauce and also the pork ribs with pecking sauce. Both of these were delicious. The duck came on the bone and the waitress shredded it upon serving. The duck came with 6 thin pancakes and the hoisin sauce was lovely. The pork ribs were indulgent. They came right off the bone and tasted amazing. This alone was probably enough for me but mains to come. My wife got vegetable spring rolls for starters which she enjoyed. The pastry was very sick and crispy. For mains my wife got chicken fried rice and curry sauce which is her go to Chinese dish. She thought it was tasty and a generous portion. I got Szechuan chicken which was nice along with chow mein. The chow mein was an enormous potion compared to the chicken which was quite small. For the table we had prawn crackers which were…well prawn crackers. I squeezed in some dessert. We shared deep fried ice cream which I’ve never had before. It was surprisingly good. The only 2 negatives was that the taps in the bathroom were only trickling out and the meal was expensive. It came to just under £80. Which for Chinese food standards is a lot. We did order a lot of food and it was all very tasty so can’t really complain.

The gentleman serving us was amazing. Had lots of stories. Very helpful with the menu and explaining how everything worked. Our starters were delicious. One pair got the sharing platter. And the other 2 got the satay skewers and the duck spring rolls and shared. Presentation was impeccable. The mains didnt pack the same punch. We were expecting a bit more spice, they were tasty. Just not as flavorful as we were expecting.