Watersky - they have knives and forks, don't you know?

I think it is incredibly difficult to find a good Chinese restaurant. I’m not talking about a local takeaway that serves questionable meat in fluorescent sauces and food served with bucketfuls of bean sprouts to flesh out portions or indeed a restaurant that serves a set menu of crispy duck, sweet and sour something and beef in black bean sauce. 

I’m talking about an authentic Chinese restaurant that serves clay hotpot dishes, dim sum and platters of Chinese roasted meat. Roasted meat, namely char siu (bbq-ed pork), duck and crispy belly pork on rice is one of the dishes of my childhood and is still one of my favourite meals. 

There are a few Chinese restaurants in Bristol, namely Dynasty, Hong Kong Diner, Mayflower, Wongs and WaterSky. I’ve visited all but Wongs and some definitely rank better than others but I won’t review all of them here today. 

I’ve visited WaterSky a couple of times, recently. Once with friends for dim sum and once on a mad mission for some crispy belly pork. WaterSky is easily one of the biggest Chinese restaurants I’ve ever been to. It easily seats 300 and is plush and opulent. The ceiling houses several gigantic chandeliers and the gold and scarlet carpet is grand and thick underfoot. And don’t even get me started on the toilets (seriously, if you visit WaterSky ladies, take a trip to the conveniences). 

We’ve been here for dim sum on the weekend when it is absolutely packed and people are queuing to get in but I don’t get it. As a self-titled connoisseur of dim sum (seriously, I come from a family who will happily drive an hour and half each way to satisfy a craving), I found it to be one of the worst places to eat it. 

The cheung fun (think Chinese cannelloni – long flat sheets of rice noodles rolled up with various fillings) with char siu was thick and rubbery and the char siu was unappetisingly pale and fatty. The yam croquettes, instead of being light and fluffy were heavy and stodgy and very dry and the various  steamed dumplings seemed to be over-cooked and soggy. Our fried dishes such as won ton (minced pork and prawn wrapped in spring roll skin and deep fried) and lobster dumpling were very greasy – I guess typical of having been taken out of the fryer and not drained properly. But everything seemed to be tasteless.  It was almost as if the food had been bought from Wai Yee Hong, the supermarket downstairs, and reheated upstairs. There didn’t seem to be any love or care in the dishes.

 All in all, I was very disappointed and won’t be letting either of my parents near it for fear of the months of moaning that will follow - ‘Remember when you took us to that restaurant for dim sum and it was LOUSY?’ / ‘I can’t believe you took us there and we had to queue for such a LOUSY meal,’ etc. (They like the word ‘lousy’).

However, I was nearby the other day and in the mood for a dish of three roasties rice. I was seated in one corner of the vast restaurant away from a crowd of noisy, elderly Chinese folk who I was told were there on an annual ‘Chinese Elders Group’ lunch. Bless… there’s something for me to look forward to in my senior years. 

When my dish came, it looked utterly delicious. Most restaurants try and palm you off with a more generous helping of char siu but the duck and belly pork was in plentiful supply too. However, I was asked if I needed a knife and fork. Bemused, I told the waitress I was Chinese to which she told me that I didn’t look it and started to question me on my heritage. Ok, I know it happens a lot and I don’t look authentically Chinese but who’s to say that even if I wasn’t, I couldn’t eat with chopsticks? Thumbs down for customer service… 

But the char siu was sweet and tender, the belly pork salty and crunchy and the duck was soft and highly spiced with 5 spice powder with a lot of the fat rendered away so you weren’t getting mouthfuls of it under the crispy skin. Except for the service, it was the polar opposite to the food we were served for dim sum and I would certainly go there again for the more traditional menu based dishes. And next time, I’m going to tell them that I’m Swedish…