Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

Red Hot Goodies Chinese, Bedminster: Review

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In all honesty, Red Hot Goodies isn’t the most appealing name for a Chinese takeaway. I’m well aware of that fact. But with a five star food hygiene rating (at the time of writing), a decent rating on Just Eat and menus that seemed more interesting than most, we decided to give their delivery service a go.

I know very little about the restaurant itself, bar that it’s located on Bedminster’s Cannon Street. Indeed, their website doesn’t even feature a telephone number, and I’m making the assumption that they only offer takeaway. After our experience, though, one thing’s for sure: we’d be more than happy to use them again.

We wanted to try a bit of a mix of different dishes, and so ordered their £8.90 set meal (2 starters, a main course and a choice of egg fried or boiled rice), along with a £5.40 portion of king prawns in Kung Po sauce and a £4.70 roast pork with cashew nuts dish. The total damage (with Just Eat’s 50p card fee and £1.50 delivery price) came to £21 – a very reasonable amount, especially considering we had plenty left over for lunch the next day.

The Kung Po prawns were probably the highlight for us: the prawns still lovely and succulent and tasting fresh, the coating crispy and full of flavour, the whole thing a winning combination of sweet, sour and spicy with a lovely crunch from the cashew nuts and additional textural differences from the veg.

 

Red Hot Goodies - Kung Po prawns

 

The roast pork didn’t just come with cashew nuts, but with a plethora of veg that included onions, carrots, water chestnuts, broccoli, mushrooms, baby corn and bamboo shoots. The beautifully cooked pork was plentiful, with both smaller and larger slices nestled amongst the veg, while the gravy that the dish was served in was lovely and thick, with plenty of added flavour from the veg as well as from the pork fat, which had rendered down perfectly.

 

Red Hot Goodies - roast pork cashews

 

The sweet and sour chicken balls were enormous, to say the least: five impressively-sized chunks of tender chicken, encased in a thick and non-greasy batter, perfect for dipping into the standard luminous sweet and sour sauce that seems to be the mainstay of most Chinese restaurants.

 

Red Hot Goodies - sweet and sour chicken

 

The aforementioned luminous sauce was served in a small pot in a multi-compartment takeaway container that also included the rice, seaweed and satay. Not much to say about the rice and the seaweed really – they were pretty much the standard fare that you get everywhere – but it may be worth mentioning the size. It’s clear from ordering that the £8.90 meal is probably designed for just 1 person, but with everything we had ordered, this amount of rice was perfectly adequate.

The first impression of the satay wasn’t great – it wasn’t the most appealing-looking dish we’d ever seen. However, the chicken was cooked well with a crispy and spicy coating that stood up to the sauce, which was incredibly sweet and with a great texture from the peanuts. Also included in the sauce were semi-raw onions, along with peppers, carrots and pineapple – to be honest, we could probably have done without the latter.

 

Red Hot Goodies - satay, seaweed, rice

 

Every dish was lovely and hot when it arrived at our door, and with free prawn crackers and spring rolls (the latter weren’t that great, mind…), it really was a meal that was unbelievable value for money. We’ll certainly be using them again in the future – despite the dodgy name…

 

 

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