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I have just been to this cafe with my 3 young children. I live near Sefton Park and come here regularly but I seldom go to this cafe - only once or twice since it opened, I have bought an ice cream off them so we could eat outside.

Well today I decided to sit in to eat. What a big mistake. I bought my children ice creams and ordered a spicy chicken wrap for myself. Was told that "there wasn't going to be any chicken for the next 15 minutes" so I changed my order to a ham and cheese wrap instead. Was given a ticket and on it said I had to listen out for my order. Well it took 20 minutes to arrive, by which I was already regretting my purchase dearly. Not only that, but the food turned out to be just one pannini-grilled flour tortilla with about 3 thin slices of ham and some flourescent yellow cheese sandwiched in the tortilla. And on the other side of the plate, a tiny ping pong ball portion of salad leaves with some olive oil drizzled over it. I wasn't given any cutlery to eat with, which, fair enough, with the tortilla sandwich I could just eat with my hands, but was I supposed to eat some salad leaves dripping with olive oil with my fingers? Were they just meant for decoration, or was I supposed to now make the walk to the cashier to ask for cutlery? In short, this was not worth the nearly £4 price tag it cost me.

And then I witnessed some disturbing things committed by a member of the cafe's staff whose job seemed to be clearing used dishes off empty tables, taking the lid off the little white flip-top-lid bin that was near our table and pushing the contents of the rubbish bin down with his bare hands, and... gasp! Fetching plates of food orders out from the kitchen within minutes of pushing contents of bin down with hands... all done without wearing any gloves! He looked scruffy, unkempt, and I was inclined to believe he may not have even washed his hands carefully between clearing dirty dishes, pushing contents of bin down, and serving customers food from the kitchen! At one time, he actually plonked a dirty used plate on the side of MY table closest to the bin (when I was still eating with my children) whilst he was clearing unwanted food off another dirty used plate. I was so gobsmacked by this that I just stopped eating and stared at him all that time, jaws agape. Never have I dined in a restaurant  witnessing a waiter/staff putting a dirty dish on a customer's table whilst the customer was still eating.

To be fair, he only did that because he was struggling to clear some sticky food off that other plate he was holding, and he couldn't have held on to both plates at the same time whilst doing that... But still... Yeurgh! He never once looked at me or in my direction as he did what he did. Whether that was because he knew what he was doing was wrong, or because he just could not give a toss, I don't know. Soon after, he disappeared off into the kitchen and re-emerged with a white plastic basin to clear dishes with so he did not have to do *that* again presumably. And he never did. But he should have done it right from the beginning, shouldn't he?

Well we left pretty quickly after that. I felt a bit sick after seeing all that and quite frankly, will never frequent that establishment again. In fact I question why the clearing of uneaten food off dirty dishes was done outside in full view of eating customers. And why each time that member of staff clears the dishes, he has to take off the bin lid completely, and then use his hands to push the contents of the bin down to make more room for more rubbish. It just smacks of laziness, lack of awareness of basic hygiene, and lack of concern for the customers.

It's a pity that this is the nearest cafe to the playground, which my children like to go to, so it's convenient to just come here after being at the playground. But the service is just horrendous. So bad, I do not feel like spending an extra penny in here again. The cafe at the duck pond is more pleasant though, although they do not serve much cooked or hot food.

Servings were really tiny for the price. Do not order a la carte – they charge as much as Chilli Banana for example, but they simply don’t have the ambience and decor to match. Floor looked dirty, the whole place looked like its been set-up in the 70s on a minimal budget and nothing’s changed since then, the cutlery and crockery are all cheap plastic stuff you can get from any local Chinese supermarket. Their set meals are a bit more reasonably priced, but the food was really nothing special and tasted full of MSG too. And the location could be better… Myrtle Parade? Liverpool’s unofficial red light district?? For the price, I would rather patronise any restaurant on Lark Lane or Tai Pan.

Car-parking is always a pain there – basically its non-existent and you’ll have to contend with parking on one of the side streets which are quite a distance away from the school. Also, there is very little in the way of facilities for parents (and their other children) who have to wait in the premises for their children to finish class. Not enough seating room, no food and drink, etc. The interior of the building is just very tiny and cramped, not very clean, dark ,full of narrow walkways and just a tad depressing. The school head does not seem to be full of enthusiasm for the teaching profession she’s involved in nor the students and their parents. She just comes across as rather unfriendly, unapproachable and only interested in taking money for the classes. I’m not surprised my daughter didn’t enjoy lessons there. But now she does, somewhere else!

The teachers are professional and seem to radiate a real love for the art and a real enthusiasm for teaching. They seem to really care for their students. There is a nice good-sized cafeteria within the school premises which sells a variety of bevarages hot and cold and simple snacks like toast, muffins, etc. There’s free Wi-Fi access in the cafeteria as well for parents with laptops. The cafeteria can sit quite a lot of people, but if its too full, there is a waiting room on the third floor and a large changing room for girls where there are also loads of seating available. There’s also a Footlights dancewear/dance shoes shop on-site which stocks all that every budding dancer would need to attend their classes and do their exams. My children enjoy their lessons here.

I went there for my birthday last winter. The service was excellent, the entertainment was good (the chefs cook "live" right in front of your eyes and they throw in a good measure of humour and party tricks for the "audience" too!). The food was also good, both the cooked and the raw sushi dishes. The portions were good considering this is one of the more expensive Japanese restaurants here - normally with expensive restaurants I'd expect much smaller portions.

I'm not sure if its because we arrived there for dinner an hour before their closing time, but basically the food on the belt looked like they've been there all day and they never bothered refilling the conveyor belt with the salmon sushi dishes or the sashimi (which was what I was looking forward to eating)!
I suppose that sort of thing is understandable to a certain extent, since they were going to close in an hour and the restaurant was quite empty already by that point, but then they might as well put up a sign outside saying "If you're going to arrive here an hour before we close, expect to see most of the popular salmon dishes gone." then I'd have saved myself a trip that evening!

I ended up ordering dishes of hot cooked food from their menu and was quite happy at the quality and taste (Chicken Katsu curry and rice was one of them). However, the food is a bit costly because the portions are really tiny (I actually needed to eat about 2 portions) and you get charged about £4 or £5 for each portion.

I took my daughter there for a haircut once and the hairdresser booked to do the cut refused to do it after consultation with me, as she thought it was just "wrong" for a little girl to have a pixie cut! As a result, there was considerable delay as she asked her colleague (who was already busy with a client) to do my daughter's hair. Her colleague then did a really bad job of it - when we got home, we realised that the right side of my daughter's hair was shorter than the left side! They charged us £10 for it and I didn't bother complaining because it was much cheaper than say, Voodou, but I have been taking my daughter to Voodou to have her hair cut ever since then.

I had a really brilliant lady instructor from this driving school. The service from the other staff was good too, I had no problems with them.

They serve really good and true traditional Chinese fair - hence the five stars. I'd say their food is even more true-to-form Chinese fair than Tai Pan as the dishes do not seem to have been in any way tinkered to cater for the Western taste bud. I know many people of the local Chinese community go there to eat and on many a weekend you'll see the restaurant is just chock full of Chinese people - which is a good sign if you're looking for a restaurant that only serves authentic Chinese food. However if this sort of palette is not your thing, you will find many of the things on the menu either strange or just off-putting. Unfortunately this is the case with me, hence I don't eat there often.

Their food is good even by Chinese standards. However my main gripe with them is that unlike other good Chinese restaurants that I've been to around the UK, they don't really do much seafood (fish or lobster dishes) which I think they should really, given that they are so often regarded as one of the best Chinese restaurants in Liverpool. I don't often eat there as a result, as seafood is my favourite!