Please note: I received credit in the Chopstix app to purchase this meal with the purpose of reviewing. This in no way impacted my opinion, I was not required to write a positive review, and the venue did not see this review before it was put up on the site.
If you’re in The Galleries in central Bristol doing a spot of shopping, you’ll find plenty of places to stop for refreshments. Whether it’s a snack, a coffee or a full meal, the food court within the shopping centre has something for everyone.
That includes lovers of Oriental-inspired food, who’ll find a branch of national chain Chopstix within the food court. It’s a chain whose origins date right back to 2002 with a single noodle bar on London’s Oxford Street, and which has now grown to over 70 locations in the UK.
The menu is the same across all Chopstix restaurants: a choice of a small (1 topping), medium (2 toppings) or large (3 toppings) box with a base of vegetable noodles, egg-fried rice or skinny rice, and a range of Oriental-inspired toppings from salt ‘n’ pepper chicken to a pumpkin katsu curry. For £1.95 extra you can add three spring rolls and a drink – and there’s a variety of sides and drinks to choose from, too. New to their menu this year is a massaman chicken curry – and as one of my favourite Thai dishes, I was keen to try their take on it.
All of the food is already cooked and stored in heated dishes at the counter, meaning no hanging around for your meal. Once you’ve chosen your base and topping(s), it’s over to the till where you can scan the barcode in your Chopstix app, if you have it, to either collect or redeem points, or redeem special offers.
I went for the vegetable noodles with the brand new massaman chicken curry (£6.50 for a small box). For me, the small was more than enough for a mid-shop lunch stop, and the box was generously filled.
In all honesty, I wasn’t a fan of the vegetable noodles: they had a weirdly claggy texture that suggested that maybe they’d been cooked quite a while earlier. On the plus side, though, they did include plenty of sliced veg.
The massaman curry was significantly more successful. For a large casual dining chain I was impressed: they’d been generous on the massaman paste to give the sauce plenty of heat and flavour, the green beans and onion slices had retained their texture, and there was a decent amount of tender chicken. I also loved the huge chunks of potato, which were fork-tender in the middle but still slightly crispy on the outside.
Unsurprisingly, the five-year-old was seduced by the word “caramel” on the Chopstix menu and went for the caramel drizzle chicken with egg-fried rice (also £6.50 for a small box).
Sadly, much like the vegetable noodles, the egg-fried rice was very dry and the texture just wasn’t right – and there was barely any actual egg to be seen. Fortunately, the sauce from the chicken redeemed it slightly – and I’ve got to say, I was actually really impressed with this one. The team behind the counter had filled the small box with plenty of large, meaty chunks of chicken, all smothered in a thick, sweet sauce. Unsurprisingly, he devoured it with gusto.
When you download the Chopstix app for the first time, you’ll find an in-app voucher for five free spring rolls – just scan your app at the counter when you order to redeem it. So…I did. They were much like the mini spring rolls you’re sometimes given as a freebie when you order from a Chinese takeaway, and while there wasn’t a vast amount of vegetable filling, they were crunchy and full of flavour.
If the noodles and egg-fried rice had been better, I’d have said that £6.50 is great value for a quick chain lunch while out shopping in Bristol. The two toppings that we tried were plentiful, cooked well and tasty, and the free spring rolls were an added bonus. With the food already cooked and in the counters ready to serve it’s a good option if you’re looking for something quick without having to wait at all. And with every purchase earning you 10% back in Chopstix reward points with the app, there’s the opportunity for some decent freebies too…