Ping Pong Restaurant, Westminster, London

beyond terrible. I would give it 0 starts if I could. The service is unbelievable, well...there isn't any. They sit you at a table then disappear until you physically have to get up and hunt one down. Everything we ordered on the menu was out of stock, the restaurant was full and people all around us were being told they didn't have this item or that item, even the tea, I was told they'd run out of jasmine tea. Took an hour for the food to arrive and it was insipid and cold and tiny portions. The bill was incredibly bad value for the food and service we recieved, in fact we and many others around us refusedd to pay the full amount. They even had the cheek to add a 10% service charge which amounted to £5.50, for service which we never recieved! avoid at all costs.

I enjoyed eating at PingPong, I like the range of drinks and trying the out and find that the dim sum is very tasty. I took my friend for the first time and he was impressed by the food especially the mango dessert.

Whilst the food is quite nice, the service is what lets it down as it is slow and somewhat cumbersome. You tend to see people waiting around without anyone attending to them, orders for drinks coming back after the meal is finished.

If you are just out for a spot of lunch then I would recommend this place as the lunch time service is much better and less busy

We went to a few Ping Pong, non of them have good service. this place is disgrace. why do we want to pay to get such awful service when the food is not that particular good??!!! the host of this place should be fired, or maybe the manager, if they don't understand the value of customer, or if they don't want to serve, why are they there? I know some restaurants just happen to have big investment behind, so they afford to have best locations, no matter what they serve, or how bad is the service, people just flood in.. unless you have no place to eat, otherwise, don't bother. go to Ping Pong, just waste your money! go to china town, you can get better dimsum and better service!

Ping Pong South Bank, I have fallen out of love with you.

I used to really love this place. The food, the drinks, the decor and ambience. All top-notch.

I went here on Saturday night - I've been there when it's been busy before, and it was fine, but this time around we should have seen the warning signs when we were handed one of those stupid pager things that Student Unions hand out if you're waiting for a burger and chips. After waiting for a table in the bar, we then had to literally wave at the waiters to get somebody to take our drinks order.

When we eventually got a table to eat at, we discovered that a lot of food on the menu was 'not available' - much to our disappointment. The food, when it arrived, was delicious as ever, but then when the mains were finished, a bill was whacked down on our table, without even asking if we wanted dessert or tea, seemingly in an attempt to turn the table around quicker. We were given a dessert menu after a request... but then had a bizarrely epic wait to get the bill at the end.

What used to be a great restaurant is now swamped and understaffed on busy nights - leaving yourself up against a bizarre conflict of staff who one minute seem desparate to get you out of the table, and the next are impossibly hard to get ahold of in order to take orders / provide service. Dining is supposed to be relaxing, not leaving you stressed at constant efforts to get the attention of staff, as you squeeze around a communal table that is simply not big enough for the food of all of the dining groups.

At £75 for 2 including service, it ends up leaving me with a horribly nasty taste in the mouth. The food was great, but did I have a pleasurable dining experience? Not in the slightest. The staff tried their best, but there just wasn't enough of them.

I would not go to the South Bank Ping Pong again, at least not on the weekend. I think I'll be returning to a quieter branch in future...

I went to Ping Pong last Sunday with an open mind and bear in mind I've had Dim Sum only once in Chinatown as a reference.

Ping Pong from the outside looks nice and impressive. Equally the décor seemed okay inside.

Being two of us they did ask if we wanted to sit immediately if we didn't mind being in the sun. It was absolutely fine I add.

We considered the Unlimited menu but wondered whether we'd really eat that much bearing in mind the price of £18.79(?) does not cover drinks and some items of the menu.

Ping Pong do Dim Sum and they do it well. The two most memorable ones were the Black Prawn steamed dumplings and the one with Turmeric. I notice they sell them as three's so one each and then you have to split the third?

It's not all perfect: I found a piece of clear plastic in my mouthful from one of the Claypot selections.
I knew I had to highlight this and the waitress quickly said she would get the Manager who apologised and offered us a couple of glasses of wine on the house.

Prior to this episode, the first steamed Broccoli that was delivered to the table was like mush and was sent back. The second one that came was exactly the same. More about this later.

We hadn't had breakfast and ate quite a lot, more than we needed to. If we had gone for the Unlimited, we'd have made a small saving each - say the equivalent of one dish so be certain you are going to eat a lot.

I thought the set menus looked good and took a lot of hassle out of what to order. Any feedback from others on their value?

Back to Broccoli: When it came to paying I pointed out to the Waitress that the Broccoli had been mush. She just said sorry.
Then whilst waiting for the other half near the exit the Manager came over to say goodbye and we had a little cordial chat. He asked me if everything else was okay and I asked how the broccoli should have been served. Apparently crispy (with a bite).
I told him about mine and in reply he told me how hard it was to monitor so much being steamed especially on a Sunday.

Is that a reasonable excuse? I don't think so. I rarely have fault to complain so never too sure what to expect when I do - not that I was on the Broccoli - I was giving feedback though I should have mentioned that £3.79 for a tiny portion of steamed Broccoli is a rip-off.

Will I go again? I think I'll give it a miss and find that place in Chinatown.

My boyfriend and I had a pretty rubbish experience at this branch of Ping Pong. I'd eaten at another one of the chain's restaurants and had a really nice meal (although expensive for what it is).

On this occasion we arrived around 5pm for an early dinner and everything seemed to go wrong, from terrible service, wrong drinks orders, waiting 20 minutes for the bill and having to endure staff arguing very loudly for all to hear. I took the feedback card home only to discover you have to hand it to your waiter... disappointed.

Won't be going back to this particular restaurant although I am a Dim Sum fan. Food is lovely but just that bit too expensive to make it a favourite. Hopefully others haven't had the same problem with service that I had.

Fantastic idea of making dim sum more available outside of Chinatown in modern surroundings. Very busy but that can only be a good sign and to be expected in this area. Had a wait for a table on a Sunday but was well worth it - food was wonderful and really good value. Best thing about the visit was my 'Flowering Dragon Eye' tea - served in a glass and left for a few moments the flower at the bottom will open up completely. Very impressive! Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.

Dim Sum streamlined just didn’t sit right with me when I first heard about it. There is something oh so pleasant about being lost in a myriad of Chinese paraphernalia, dragons, silk screen painting, abalone suctioned on glass and cats paws bobbing around you.
However, Ping Pong has shown me that dim sum can be streamlined, and I will accept it, but only because the food is just so lovely. Fresh, crafted, verging on authentic cuisine, all nestled in a pretty lacquered to shine venue on the entrance to the Southbank. Tis quite the package really.
Throw in two for one cocktail vouchers (thanks) and really it’s not all that sad that I can’t be distracted by a gold frog with a coin in his mouth.

The ultimate dimsum restaurant, this funky, cool and popular restaurant sits proudly on the southbank down from the BFI and National Theatre. It literally does one thing, and does it well - offers dim sum. And lots of it. You are presented with menus and a piece of paper reminiscent of a cluedo sheet, which you mark according to what you want to eat, not with what implement you think Colonel Mustard used in the Ballroom. They then take the sheet and return with plates and plates of delicious goodies. I particularly recommend the duck spring rolls and the crispy prawn balls, but the har gau dumplings are amazing and you must eat some of the sticky rice which comes wrapped in a leaf. Oh, and you can’t leave without trying the kumquat mojito. Summink Else!

Been a couple of times to Ping Pong, Southbank, as it has been convenient and not too expensive. Set menues is a good choice. Saves you the hassle of choosing and you get to try more stuff. The food is average - you definitely get better dim sum in Soho. One of my friends mentioned it all tasted more or less the same the last time - think he was right on that occasion. Service has been good.

The staff at this place were very friendly and, as you can’t book a table unless there are more than 8 in your party, quite adept at telling people that they might have to wait a bit. Handily, there is a bar upstairs where you can wait (and buy expensive cocktails, obviously) and a fair ticketing system so there’s little chance that you’ll have enough material to write a half hour sitcom here.

In the end we only had to wait about 15 minutes as we didn’t mind sharing a table with other people. The seating in the restaurant was nice to look at but, because you’re sharing a semicircular bench with someone else you do have to co-ordinate yourselves to get it in the right position. The table we sat at was for 8 and it would have been great if we’d all been together but with all that dim sum on the table it felt a little cramped trying to keep our stuff on our little quarter.

It’s a great idea to have dim sum as the entire menu as in a proper Chinese restaurant you can only get it at a certain time of day. In comparison to dim sum I’ve had before the menu is quite small and eclectic. But the food that we ordered was good. They asked us if we had ever been to a Harvester, I mean Ping Pong, before we ordered so it’s clearly aimed at people who have never savoured the delights of dim sum before and my friend (who never has) loved it. Because the portions are smaller you feel that you can be a bit more adventurous with the menu. The waitress advised us to get 5 dishes each!! but I assured my friend that 3 each should be enough and it was.

It was great fun in here - less brash than dim sum at a Chinese restaurant but less speedy and less menu but fun all the same. If you want authentic dim sum, though, I would recommend any Chinese restaurant instead.

Ping Pong is a themed chain of restaurants that sell modern Asian food, in particular dim-sum. They are usually well decorated and usually quite busy.

At the Waterloo branch you sit as in most of the locations around small tables, asian style. Let me start in a rather petty way by saying they’re uncomfortable little things and don’t lend themselves to long stay. Staying at a place for a reasonable length of time is something that high prices should allow but in the case of Ping-Pong it’s not always the case.

Foodwise, they have a great little menu that’s got a lot of lovely items on. There’s seafood dim-sum, which appears to be a speciality as well as the usual assorted steamed and fried dishes. Since it’s somewhat Western in influence these aren’t as authentic as a Chinatown place, but it’s a good start.

The dishes though are expensive, as another reviewer pointed out this is quite shocking considered the very small portions. In addition when I visited it was very easy for the server to seem to get confused and bring us the dishes for the other tables.
As an example of the price comparison, the 'special’ flower tea they sell can be found for 1/10th the price in supermarkets… There’s a lot of mark-up on the 'exotic’ nature of the products they are selling, so you need to be aware of this.

So, overall on the food… It’s good, tasty and varied, but oh-so-small portions and so expensive. Very much a 3 star if you’re with a group, or on a business lunch. However I actually only rate it a 2 once you factor in that you can’t really justify the prices if it’s only two of you dining.

First time I’ve been here, there were 10 of us, which was frankly too many for the circular tables. Best to go with two or three people. Unused to picking the food as well, which basically involves ticking a paper list after studying the menu, and then handing your choices to the waiter, who was very attentive, constantly filling our glasses with water. I had the duck spring rolls, which were delicious, the pork bun, likewise delicious, and a hot and sour soup, which was a tiny portion that quite disappointed me. 23, 26 and 138. The toilets here are very strange and deserve a mention. Basically you wash your hands by putting them underneath a counter, at which point you may encounter female hands, as teh water is shared with the girls toilets. This is just odd, as naughty pervert girls can look straight at the urinals. Splitting the bill caused a few problems as we had all decided to split evenly before the meal, then some people only wanted to pay for two courses, but it was still good value, I ended up paying £11.20 for three servings which would have cost me about £9.60 had I been on my own, which is a pretty good ratio when I remember some of the shared bills I experienced at places such as Pizza Express, where the wine drinkers and bread eaters benefited tremendously.

This place is fun…...............Clean bright, modern and the staff are very efficient.

There is a list of various dishes - fried, steamed, rice etc. All you have to do is tick the box beside your choice and before you know it you are set upon by various staff piling your table with lots of amazing plates of food, dipping sauces, pancakes, wine, water…........... and as quickly as it came the empties are cleared away to make room for the next surge of food.

In the main area of the restaurant there are big round turning tables, ideal for a larger group of friends who wish to share dishes.

I came away feeling very full and the meal was really quite inexpensive. £50 for two of us which included wine and water.

Very efficient on arrival, they seat you almost immediately in the bar upstairs and give you a numbered tag. This way you can relax in the bar for as long aas it takes to get a table, which can be a while in the evening as it gets very very busy.

Once seated the novelty of ticking boxes to order different dim sum is fun although try not to get too carried away as it just seems to keep on coming and is more filling than you realise.

Perhaps a victim of its own success it struggles to keep up with demand once you are seated. Dishes arrive sporadically at your table, we were given one of our dishes twice plus something we didn’t order and then had to argue over what we had and hadn’t received as we were still waiting for one of our dishes long after everything else was finished.

If they can work on the service element it would be a lot better but the food is fun and the location is convenient. If I was craving dim sum I would travel to somewhere more authentic but this place is great for a drop in dinner if you are on the Southbank.

I’ve been here a couple of times and the long queues are testament to how good it is. So busy that you have to even queue to get into the bar whilst you wait for your table but it is worth the wait if you really like your dim sum.

If you’re not sure what to have then go with friends, order random dishes and try a bit of everything, there will be something on the menu you’ll like. And the cocktails are pretty good too, especially the long ones.

A beautiful looking restaurant with a chic and bubbly vibe. The food did not live up to the ambience though. I was excited looking at the menu but when it came the dim sum was quite pasty and stodgy and not at all light like it is in China. The portion vs cost does not balance as each dish averages at £4 and consists of 3 small peices of dim sum.

The staff spoke poor english and I had to translate what they were saying to my dinner companion. Their good nature did make up for the lack of linguistic skills though!

The food took a long time and so did the drinks but it was ram jam packed out.

For 2 people with one alcoholic drink it came to £45. All that said, I would go there again.

Ding Dong, it’s time for Ping Pong.

Being a very simple lad i’ve always tended to end up in some greasy curry house whenever anyone has suggested Dim Sum to me before. But hey i was on the south bank and thought lets be cultural…

Really enjoyed it, it was stupidly busy but a bit of chat with the waitress and we managed to get sat in the upstairs bit almost straight away, i think it is better up there if you get the choice as it’s a bit more private and you feel like you are somewhere slightly more exclusive (you aren’t, you’re on the Thames in a chain Dim Sum)

Food was delicious, the cocktails looked great and the service was with a smile, in fact I seemed to be being served by about 20 different people, all with a smile.

Ding Dong

I had a horrible experience at Ping Pong. I thought the food was pretty good, the spicy pork dumplings were tasty and so was the house red wine but the SERVICE was truly disgraceful.

We were seated outside and ignored for about 15 minutes before getting a menu or any service. It was getting cold and we wanted to move inside which they said shouldn’t be a problem, only a few minutes. If they couldn’t move us, just tell us exactly that… but they didn’t and came back 20 minutes later saying it should only be a few more minutes. After getting half way through our meal, we were moved inside.

I think it was just one person in particular that was the culprit but that put a bad taste in my mouth about the place.

Anyways, I’ll give another location a try because the food was pretty good and I had a nice rest of the evening after everything was sorted.

This is a great little place, part of the ever-expanding Ping Pong dim-sum chain. The food is divine, and it’s a handy place to grab something whilst soaking in some culture around the South Bank. Service can vary wildly, however, they are usually quick but it can be a bit impersonal. It’s always REALLY busy too so be prepared to wait.

Overall a top tip to grab some food before a concert or gallery.