China Sea at Al Maktoum Road on a Chinese New Year

Prince turned ten months last February six and as usual either we celebrate it by having to order food delivered at home or dine-in in a restaurant. At the same time I was craving for some hot and sour soup and the best place to have it is at our favorite China Dragon restaurant located behind Ramada Continental Hotel in Deira (in Al Mamzar) the same building of Sevan bakery.

When we get there, the lights of the Chinese lanterns that adorn the facade of the restaurant was switched off and a post at the door says close for two days in celebration of the Chinese New Year. :( A friend suggested that we head towards Al Maktoum Road in Deira where another Chinese Restaurant is located. :) We drove all the way to Al Maktoum road and we are delighted to see that the lights are on and was quite crowded with mix nationalities having dinner. We are lucky to find a parking spot behind the restaurant, although it is a paid parking and not of the restaurants

We asked for a table for five and we were directed by a Chinese waiter into a round table. It took time for someone to give us the menu. We are clueless of what to order and we are just looking at the food on the next table. We gave our orders and since it was our first time to dine at China Sea, we had to play safe, we ordered those that we are most familiar with, the typical Chinese food. I had hot and sour soup and the rest of them had corn soup, maybe I set my expectations too high because I did not like the soup much. I gave them another shot since we ordered something else. The shrimp dumplings are fantastic, it was perfectly cook in a bamboo steamer, the only thing I notice was there was no dumplings paper underneath the dumplings in between the bamboo, maybe they missed to place one, guess it would have been better if the paper is there for heigenic and food presentation purposes.

We had some chicken spring rolls and duck served with pancake (my favorite)

Some egg fried rice and mixed noodles to go with our crispy duck and sweet and sour chicken

We actually ordered a whole duck but since only the meat is served with the pancake, the rest of the carcass with some remaining meat on it was marinated and deep fried and it was not bad, still very tasty. My daughter loves the sweet and sour chicken and we needed to order one more for take-away, she asked to have it for her packed lunch at school.

All these are for only 215 AED and the food was great and I wouldn't mind recommending the restaurant to my friends and sure we will not hesitate to come back at China Sea next time. Timeout Dubai named it as best independent Chinese restaurant in 2009 and highly commended Chinese restaurant for two consecutive years from 2009 and 2010. It was also awarded as best budget, I cannot deny the fact that they serve fresh and authentic Chinese food at low cost, very affordable.

It was Chinese New Year and I have noticed that there is a big statue of Buddha with fruit offerings next to it.

The facade of China Sea is bright red at this time as well.



Definitely we will give it another try and when we come next time I want to order some steamed crabs and lobster which are fresh from the aquariums they maintained themselves just right next to the entrance on the left side. I would love to see the live cooking station too and the fresh noodle pulling, actually I want to try it. :)

Happy eating everyone!