Dalchini

Sadhana S

we were so impressed with the service. The waiter really listened when we said we had a sore throat. He brought us a kettle of warm water to drink to soothe our throats. The food was amazing.

will definitely be back for more

Katerina S

If you are around Wimbledon Park you must go and try the delicious food in Dalcini restaurant , so don't wait make an a reservation ! service excellent like always :D

Ryan G

I saw their photos on instagram and went in on Mother's day. The place was packed. We basically ordered all the starters that we'd seen photos of. Lamb ribs, Pepper chilli paneer, Chicken lollipops and the Lamb momos. They were all delicious. I ordered a second portion of the lamb momos before our mains came! They had a lot of new staff and while some of them looked like they were still learning, they were all friendly. The decor is a little tired but the food was great.

Ryan G

Dalchini is a little hidden gem in Wimbledon Park. I saw their photos on instagram and went in on Mother's day. The place was packed. We basically ordered all the starters that we'd seen photos of. Lamb ribs, Pepper chilli paneer, Chicken lollipops and the Lamb momos. They were all delicious. I ordered a second portion of the lamb momos before our mains came! They had a lot of new staff and while some of them looked like they were still learning, they were all friendly. The decor is a little tired but the food was great.

Chris A

My family and I have been eating at Dalchini for over 10 years and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I noticed it has been reviewed badly on this site and had to do something about it. The crispy lamb schezuan starter is my favorite - strips of fried lamb in a ginger and chilli coating. Their chicken hot and sour soup is fantastic along with the pepper chilli paneer. For mains, my family usually gets the chicken manchurian, kung pao chicken and lamb dry red chilli - always with egg fried or burnt ginger rice. I have grown up with these dishes and get withdrawal symptoms if it's been more than a month of me not eating there!

Lance B

The place had mixed reviews so I was wary but thought I'd give it a go with the family for my wife's birthday. We went at the end of January - not the busiest day of the week or the busiest month, the place was half full with 2 waiters. From the first mouthful of the 1st dish I knew we had made a mistake - we should have left... I won't go into the detail of every dish, but the highlights were: 1/2 crispy duck, a peculiarly small portion, that had been shredded in the kitchen so who knows what we were given, tiny portion or cucumber and spring onions, restaurants usually cut some/all of the skin off of the cucumber but that was mostly what we given. The duck was cold in the middle of the plate and hot around the edges - a microwave job! Gloopy dishes, a gloopy prawn curry, the prawns were fine but the sauce was just packed out with some flour or other thickener. In fact most of other dishes were the same. Some spicy chicken starter, or at least we ordered it as a starter. Tasted OK but the outside was very hot and take a bite and inside was stone cold, but not evenly so over the whole dish, tasted like a hot (in both ways) sauce had been thrown over some pre cooked meat that hadn't been heated up properly - another microwave job I expect. Singapore noodles, if you enjoyed the OTT colourings and flavourings of the 1970's ready meal you will love this. Rose Sherbet. I wanted something other than a beer as I was driving. What might a Rose sherbet be? Turns out it's diet lemonade (as you can taste the nasty sweetener) and a splash of Rose cordial, not chilled and not very nice. Green Chillis are everywhere, I mistook one for a spring onion (my fault not their's) and OMG I needed a glass of water, the rose water didn't help and there was no jug of water on the table, I was so desperate I would have drunk the vase water. Vegetables were soft and overcooked, or perhaps they were just old and cooked, I couldn't tell. Considering there were 2 waiters, the lady owner sitting by the front door and only about 6 tables occupied the service was sloppy and slow. I wasn't surprised to get a bill of £25 a head for 2 courses and one round of cokes. I am surprised that other reviewers on other sites have had positive things to say about the place. This is the first review I have written in 25 years of going to restaurants, I have never been moved to bother before ONE TO AVOID

Harsh P

I love this kind of food – Chinese, but Indian style! From roadside stalls to upmarket restaurants in Mumbai, Delhi and numerous other cities/towns in India, I have had a lot of ‘Indian Chinese’ and have, on average, really enjoyed it. Dal Chini is a great name for a restaurant serving ‘Indian Chinese’ and, having read the descriptions and menus on their site, we went with high hopes. Veronica Sarkhel's restaurant brought us down to earth in a jiffy. The service was ever so slightly grumpy but we put it down to an overactive imagination to begin with. Unfortunately the grumpiness continued throughout our dinner. One of the waiters (maybe a new employee), slightly built and anxious, was occasionally bullied by the more ‘senior’ (read grumpy) ones. The menu was good – not extensive, but a reasonable coverage of the dishes I would have expected to see, so we set about our business with some ‘Hot & sour chicken soup’ for us, ‘Hakka fried chicken’ and ‘Chicken sweetcorn soup’ for the kids. Our soup was just about average – was missing the zing that I normally associate this soup with. Chicken sweetcorn soup is reasonably simple but a quick taste from the kids' bowls revealed weak flavours. The Hakka fried chicken (splashed on to a quarter plate with not a nano-second's thought to presentation) was definitely reheated. Szechuan egg noodles arrived and were undercooked (just a bit); the vegetable fried rice was okay – slightly more oil than preferable and possibly reheated. Chicken hunan came with refried (or reheated) chicken strips in the sauce – again, tolerable but just about. Our choice from the specials menu was ‘Vegetables with bamboo shoots and cashew nuts’ – the sauce was fine however some of the vegetables tasted a little stale (mushrooms for instance). The beans, normally supposed to be firm and crunchy, were weak and soggy – maybe boiled for too long. So, you ask, were the prices so low that one would overlook all of this and come home having received fair value for money? Erm…no, not really. Even had a 10% optional service charge added in which I, meekly, left in. We also managed the incredible feat of ceasing to exist as customers immediately after payment was complete. No byes, no thank yous, no nothing – insincerities you only miss when the staff can't muster even these up! Strangely, the restaurant was quite busy! Was this crowd mainly made up of first-timers? I have to think it was; I certainly can't think of anything that would make me go back to Dalchini. All in all, a poor experience.