Oriental House

Looking for Chinese food to eat, we found this small restaurant on market st. We were the only table that night. Anyways, the restaurant itself is nice and clean. I ordered sliced beef & egg over rice. The portion itself was pretty big, but the taste itself was a meh. The rice was too dry, the rest wasn’t bad, but with that price, I expected more.

This place was my go-​to takeaway study food place. Offering delivery (especially convenient when I was stuck at middle-​of-​nowhere DRA) and cheap but satisfying comfort food, it soon became one of my favorite restaurants in St Andrews.
I do not think I need to point out that it is ‘westernized’ Chinese food, because it is evident from their menu that they do cater to their (probably) mostly British clientele. However, I do not mind westernized Chinese food, and I think the food they offer is up there with some of the best westerner-​catering Chinese places in Canada and the US.
My favorites were Lemon Chicken, Ball Ball Chicken, and their Prawn crackers. I have not been able to find Ball Ball Chicken (which seems like it may be a UK Chinese dish) or Lemon Chicken as good as theirs anywhere in North America and I find myself missing/​craving it regularly!
When I moved to central St Andrews I would go in to their takeout counter and often chatted with the people working there and found them to be very pleasant. I never had the chance to eat in at their restaurant, however.

I stayed in St. Andrews from May to July in the summer of 2012 and I came away with the impression that British food isn’t actually all that bad. After uttering these words, I have to stop and think about what I actually ate in Britain, and then I remember that basically I either cooked, my fiancée cooked for me, or I ordered take-​away from this place. Come to think of it, I really didn’t have much of a taste of Britain.
Anyway, I can’t really put my finger on why I liked this place so much. However, any time I think about this place I get very happy and their website makes me nostalgic. The people who were working here were quite nice (the take-​away people in the basement, since I never actually ate here in the dining room). The food was not amazing, but it certainly surprised me for a Chinese place in little St. Andrews, Scotland. The lemon chicken is the best version I’ve had in my life and the ball ball chicken is a fun and tasty variation on sweet and sour chicken. I absolutely love the prawn chips and I’m happy this place turned me on to them. I loved pigging out on the curry rice. Their spicy noodles with bean sprouts dish was equally delicious. I’m not sure why, but most of their menu sounds very appetizing. My only regret is not trying more off of the menu, and I sure did try a lot of things. I also enjoyed getting a lilt or a coke to go with the meal, making this a true pig out experience while I watched football matches and Korean dramas. Every time I ordered from here, it felt like they were personally swaddling me in a giant blanket and lulling me into a blissful state of comfort.
One dish in particular I really enjoyed was the black bean chicken dish that I had after a long walk from St. Andrews down the Fife Coastal Path to Tentsmuir (that was filled with many, many insane detours) Upon reaching St. Andrews again, I was limping through the streets looking like a man who couldn’t pay his debts and I was dying of hunger. I knew then I would have to make a stop at Oriental House to replenish my strength. I’m not sure if it was because of the exhausting day I had mixed with not eating all day mixed with wanting to eat a horse (apparently not okay in Britain), but this dish was one of the best things I’ve ever had to eat in my life. I licked every corner of my take-​away carton.
In the end, I would rank this place way above any counterpart Chinese-​American place I’ve had in terms of quality. I knew I missed this place, but I didn’t realise exactly how much I missed this place until I was in the middle of writing this review. Prior to leaving, the girl working here recommended my fiancée try the duck. We never got to eat there again to do so but, as it stands today, duck is one of my absolute favorite foods. In memory of that girl and the great experiences I had here, please go here and try the duck! Hopefully you’ll experience half the joy I did dining here.

Would take this over any New York Chinese…
But not as good as it used to be.

Here’s the story:
Today, for dinner, I decided to make myself pasta with squid in its own ink with a side of garlic fava (broad beans to the English/​Scottish) beans… (I swear this has something to do with me having Oriental House…)…
While the pasta was good & the squid was good, I just couldn’t get over the smell and decided not to eat the whole thing. The fava beans were bomb as usual but I was left with hunger pains.
Luckily one of my friends had ordered take out from Oriental House and was kind enough to share his crispy beef and chow mein with me.
I have had better chow mein and crispy beef else where but I was just so hungry that it tasted OK to me. I would have to agree with the reviewer above me… its not like any place in the UK serves real Chinese food but if your hungry enough it will hit the spot.
I probably wouldn’t go back but thanks to my friends generosity, I will go to bed tonight with a full stomach.