Review China Chilli - Adelaide

Even though it's early lunch time, I want to drink a lot of beer. Personally, I liked the perfect combination of lamb skewers, spicy noodles, and sour beef soup.

Would give 0 stars if I could. Came with the family and we all enjoyed the steamed rice…that’s it. We all now understand why it’s called ‘China chilli’, every dish had about 50 chopped chillies and had more of that than the actual dish. Half the food did not look like photos, however, great way to loose 3 kilos in one night. Although, the service was great if you like waiting ages.

One of our favourites, so you'll find our family there on more Friday nights than not! The manager is fabulous! Warm and welcoming, basically knows our order to the letter by now, and calmly keeps everything running perfectly for all guests, upstairs, downstairs and in between! Definitely recommend 👌

Great food, Great portion, very satisfied. Cons: It takes soo long to come out...but I guess it's okay since the food is yum Maybe not the right place if you're super hungry, but otherwise, just need to wait a bit

Amazing restaurant serving really authentic Sichuan cuisine- servings is big at reasonable price. Could order more and do take away for lunch and dinner next day😂😅. Great atmosphere and the food standard is as good as SYDNEY Sichuan food. I would recommend 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 By the way, the chef is inspiring and nice!!

HOT POT BUFFET $39.80 per person Customer service is not good like before. Food is ok but not high quality. Meat doesn’t look and taste as fresh as other places. Overall, food is normal but you’ll get sick of it after a while. I personally think this is quite expensive, other hotpot restaurants are cheaper

This comment is for Szechuan food (ground floor) only. I do normally not come back to the same restaurant as I would like to explore something new, but China Chilli is the only one I have been visited over dozens of times in the past few years since I lived in Adelaide. It used to be negatively impacted by a very rude female manager, but since that lady has gone, this restaurant is back to my top recommendation for very authentic Szechuan food. And the food never fails me at any time.

1.complicated menu (without proper category of food or dishes ) 2. For soup enoki mushroom is not proper cut basically the chef just dump everything in the soup and garnish with some chilles on top ( soup still taste good chef need to put in more effort in his dish) 3.pork slices getting thinner since this year. 4. Upon reaching the main door no host is avaliable and we were picked up by the chef and the chef told the host to serve us. 5.please have a proper music , dont mix chinese english and korean song in the pkaylist and blast in the restaurant .

Ordered the sizzling chili chicken, the dish wasn't even spicy. Instead the plate was inedible as it was way too salty, tasted like the chef had dropped the salt shaker in the dish. We complained and ended up still having to pay for it. Also saw the waitress putting old used rice back into the rice cooker and re-using it eeeeew

Bring me some water !! This place certainly packs a punch! Chilli++++ the fish in chilli oil is yummy If you don't mind the ridiculous amount of oil... Their boneless fried chicken in chilli is also good... Dumplings are average ... Eggplant in hotpot is also a winner ..

Definitely not for everyone.  Went with a Chinese friend who was very excited at the prospect of authentic Szechuan cuisine, who even admitted the next day he had a terrible stomach ache.  Two of our three mains were inedible.  A plate of hot dried chillis.  They were supposed to be chicken dishes.  I think there was some chicken, but can't be sure.  The decor looks impressive.

We ate here on a busy day during the Christmas period. The staff were excellent, very attentive. Ordered on an iPad, which had instructions in Chinese - had to ask for assistance from one of the waitresses who was very helpful. <br/>The spring rolls were delicious. The vegetarian fried rice, sizzling pepper beef and Asian greens with garlic were all delicious! A little pricey for what you get but delicious nonetheless!

This review is for the hot pot upstairs, not the restaurant downstairs. <br/><br/>Great value, great fun for a group of friends, family or date night. Choose your favourite soup and ingredients. Being able to cook and eat at your own pace makes it a great way to sit around and catch up while eating good food! Spicy soup is the bomb and get the fish balls!

I had went there for dinner.Food was pretty good and tasty,generous portions,little bit pricey over other chinese restautants.<br/>It was crowded still service was quick.<br/>Overall a good experience<br/>

We went here during the weekends to celebrate a friend's son's baptismal ! They were pretty chill while accompanying 30 + more people and the service was pretty above average! The food were delicious too and the servings were quite generous!<br/><br/>Food <br/>I loved the Sizzling Beef and The Kung Bao Chicken 😍😍 Both yum and we were satisfied with the servings !! The rest were slight average when it comes to taste ! <br/><br/>Service <br/><br/>Was really good considering that there were 30 + plus people booked in ! The lady at the front desk was welcoming, Cheerful and responsive ! <br/><br/>Atmosphere <br/><br/>The place was well decorated ! From the ceiling it its table ! It neat and pretty looking ! <br/><br/>Pretty good experience overall !

I have been here probly three times (all for Hotpot) with my partner and it was pretty good. There's a big selection of ingredients and the soup bases are pretty nice. If you want something outstanding this is not it but if you just want a decent feed on a Friday night with friends / partner it's pretty satisfying.

Lemongrass is not commonly used in Chinese dishes. I've been here tons of times. The food is overpowering because of the different spices they use. Please get your fact straight. It is seriously pretty authentic to what Szechuan cuisine is like. Google it and you'll know what I mean, hopefully. Don't assume that all Asian food is the same. It's not. Poppie

Very disappointed. Avoid it! There are many better & cheaper Chinese food choices around!<br/>Tried same named restaurants in Melbourne, thought the Adelaide one would keep the  same standard but unfortunately not. The fish was over-cooked, the meat was too salty, even the rice was dry and un-cooked. What kind of Asian restaurant can't even cook rice?<br/>To make things worse, we were sitting beside the fish tank, when the waiter came to catch fish, water split all over me and they refuse to apologize. The short hair waitress in the front was super rude and basically saying we "deserve it" because we chose this table instead of the outside table that she asked us to sit. FYI, it was raining.

The most overpriced food I think I've ever eaten. Words cannot describe how disappointed and dissatisfied we were at China Chilli. Possibly the most expensive Chinese food in Adelaide ($25.80 mains) and probably the worst. Truly was terrible. Enough with the lemongrass already! I'd have to say lemongrass was in every dish. It was so overpowering we couldn't stomach the dishes. Would not recommend this place to anybody unless you enjoy flushing money down the toilet. Extremely disappointed, how do I give this place a 0? We could have gone to dozens of other amazing restaurants and spent $90 on quality food elsewhere. What you see in the photos, plus spring rolls cost $90 💩

Had the hotpot buffet. The food here is pretty good and authentic, compare to what Chinese food you can find in Adelaide. A good soup base which you can choose from a variety of choices in a split pot or single pot. The food options were also very wide in range. There is also a free-flow beverage option for $3-4. <br/><br/>The staff there were very quick to respond to requests albeit poor in English. The Ipad ordering system is handy as you can just tap on the item picture you want. Although the staff there provided good service, the lady who looks to be the in-charge did not impress us. When we entered the restaurant, it was already obvious that she was in a bad mood as she simply pointed with disinterest to our table while one of her girls led us there. <br/><br/>Things took a turn halfway through our meal when we ordered seconds (not much, just a couple of items). The lady didn't bother to hide her annoyance when she brought our food and even pointed out that "we charge for left over food" before turning to leave. Our moods dipped immediately and we were pretty uncomfortable when we went for drink refills as she would eye the process. Finally when we looked like we were finished, she was at our table in a heart beat! Asking if we're done and taking the plates away swiftly while telling us "don't order so much next time" <br/><br/>Honestly it's such a pity, the food was good but the service quality (monetary matters aside) would make me think twice about visiting again.

Not a good experience. Beef Ma Pa Tofu was ordered take away. There was no meat in dish and 70% of container was just oil. not edidible. What was left of the sauce was pure thick soybean paste not mixed in. Most disappointing food experience. Added photos for reference. Also the shiuan pepper were put in whole, raw and too much was in which made my tounge feel numb. This spice should be ground and in small amounts.

I had been searching for good Kung Po chicken in Adelaide for years and h<br/>Was disappointed time after time by westernised, non-authentic, poor-substitute versions until I found China Chilli.<br/><br/>If you don't like spicy food at all, this is not the place for you; they only have, maybe, three non-spicy dishes on the menu. All dishes come with a chilli rating and I tend to go for the ones with only one chilli or none. Dishes were high quality and very flavourful.<br/><br/>Our favourite dishes are the Kung Po Chicken, some kind of fish soup, and snake beans with pork mince.<br/><br/>Service is pretty average but I don't expect much from any Chinese eateries. Menu comes in the form of an iPad, which you order from as well.

Good food! The lamb ribs were amazing and the prawn with green tea leaves was very nicely done; not too heavy on the fried batter and the tea leaves added a nice bitterness. Reasonably priced as well given the location and quality. <br/>Next thing to try would be the hot pot which has a pretty huge menu and a decent price for the types of items they serve. Will be back for sure. <br/>The only reason it isn't five stars is they have this horribly complicated iPad ordering system which is essentially useless if you don't read the la gauge because you can add the items in English it takes you to a non-English screen, which makes us need to call the guy over. Over complicates and slows things down.

Delicious spicy food.. Do take note that some dishes are very spicy.. Has other chains in sydney as well. Perfect for hot pots. I recommend the lamb ribs.. Yumo!

Went for hot pot last night but have been many times before. I've been to Sichuan and the food is as authentic as it gets in Adelaide. Sichuan is one of my favourite cuisines, it's spicy but it also packs a lot of other interesting flavours too. It's isn't just about the chilli. <br/><br/>Most of the wait staff do speak English, but you sometimes need to be patient with them. I've never had rude service here but the style might be different to what you are used to.<br/><br/>Give it a try.

We ate at China Chilli last night. The food is great - spicy, uses chilli graphic to describe hotness and we thought they were pretty accurate. If you like spicy food you will enjoy China Chilli. However, the Maitre'D (actually a woman - Maitre'Dess) what an attitude! You order by clicking on a picture of your food on an iPad. At first it seemed a good idea. But when there are 8 people at your table and one iPad it takes forever to order. We had trouble ordering a glass of wine as opposed to a bottle of wine on the iPad. Eventually the waiter told us the reason we couldn't order any of the glasses of wine on the menu we had selected was because they weren't available. Through the Maitre'D we then ordered 4 glasses of wine. First two came out OK and then she came with a further three when we had only ordered two. She tried to argue it was our mistake but we had five people sitting there who had heard the conversation and she had mucked up! Boy, not happy Jan! Glared and stalked off lol! also difficult to check your order on the iPad as its all written in Chinese. And you need to check your order because it's hard to tell sometimes if you have ordered or not as the 'tick' can come up just for a second and then you're not sure did it go through or not. Basically you need to be able to check you haven't ordered things you don't want. Serving staff were helpful but not 'she who is in charge'! I think use of the iPad system would improve for us now we've tried it but it's still an issue not being able to check your order and of course you have no visual record of what you ordered and the cost if you want to split the bill. One minor funny thing - the $3.50 bottle of water ordered by one of our group was Coles home brand! I won't go back only because of the ordering system and the attitude of the Maitre'D. There are too many fantastic places to eat in Adelaide to bother going somewhere you haven't had a really positive experience.

Had a really bad experience here. The service is disappointed and the food are normal. Definitely not worth to come back!

Tasty food. There is a bit of a language barrier but with a small effort it was easy to make friends with the staff and from there on no real problems. Once you've mastered the iPad ordering system it's good - means less misunderstandings when ordering. Food was a bit slow coming out but it wasn't a huge issue. Once we got it we were happy with the quality. We love Szechuan food. Their house wine was surprisingly good and pretty cheap. We'd go back. We both think it deserves a much higher score than the 58% it had when we were there (good to see it's gone up a bit).

Had a great time here last night. Tried 5 dishes all were on point. Staff were very attentive, in particular our waiter Steven did an excellent job. Will recommend this to my friends. Well priced and plenty of food. Thanks

Avoid the Kung po chicken at all cost! It was as if someone has spilt lemon detergent in the dish! Our tastebuds were assaulted with this god-awful taste/sensation we had to experience for hours after the meal!

Long long waiting time. We ordered 4 dishes and the first dish came within 5 minutes and we had to wait over 30 minutes for the next dish, we wanted to cancel the orders but at this point, one of the dishes arrived.<br/><br/>I noticed that they choose to lump the same orders together for their own convenience of cooking multiple servings together, so don't expect good quality food, it is only mediocre.<br/><br/>With mediocre food with long waiting time, I would suggest you steer clear of this place.

Hot!. Firstly, I am not good with spicy food. I came here because my partner loves spicy food and we were keen to try this restaurant out. Very busy. We had to leave our number but we didn't have to wait long for a table. We tried traditional Chinese food but would like to try the hot pot next time - very popular with the diners. I was pleased you can have unlimited refills of drinks. This is handy for me.

Warning - Szechuan Cuisine!. Well it is not named China Chilli for fun. This is full-on Szechuan, and with a strong popularity among the native Chinese citizens of Adelaide, they do not need to Australianise the food to attract customers.<br/>As for the iPad based menu, the main problem I had with that was the waiter wouldn't leave it with me to peruse, instead I had to view a few offered options and select on the spot. On the other hand he did offer advice and ask questions which proved helpful as much of the menu is in Chinese.<br/>I selected a fish and bean curd dish, all floating in a liquid containing all of the chillies and peppers they had at hand. I must say that I think the heat ruined what were the 2 delicate flavours of fish and bean curd, but it was a genuine dish and I asked for it. The steamed rice helped to cool my mouth down. Once in a while I would accidently miss separating a pepper from my next mouthful and crunch it whilst chewing - wow. I had been told that this dish was only of medium heat, so things could have been worse for me.<br/>The place was almost full when I arrived but service was fast, polite and helpful. I was attended to for ordering within 5 minutes and the food was served about 10 minutes later.<br/>This restaurant is good, but know what you are ordering, it may be fiery.

Disappointing experience!. Waited for 45 minutes for our dishes, but nothing came. Double checked with one of the waiters and it turned out that the kitchen has not even started preparing any of them. Walked out the door, but one of the waitresses was reluctant to let us go and said she would double check with the kitchen to speed up a dish we did not even order in the first place. It was already late when we walked out, left hungry and extremely disappointed with our 2nd visit. Never going back there again!

Awesome and friendly service and HOT

Feeling Disappointed. Firstly it was hard to communicate with their staffs and unaccepted price ($30 for the buffet menu without drink or any compliment).

If you love chili this is a must.

A little above average dining experience. Tasty food but won't be heading back in a hurry. Good, friendly service and dishes came quickly. Not crap but not amazing.

A Balanced Review Good vs Bad. As a fan of Sichuan Chinese cuisine and in particular hot pot I thoroughly enjoy the food at China Chilli Adelaide for which I have dined at several times since its recent opening. As others have stated in rather direct reviews, many of the staff do have poor english speaking skills. This in conjunction with little explanation of how their menu/buffet works (in English) and the added element of ipad ordering seems to leave most non chinese clientele confused as to how things work at China Chilli. As an Australian, I was fortunate enough to visit this restaurant with a mandarin speaking friend. Whilst dining this afternoon I saw two groups of non-chinese customers come into the restaurant, sit down and due to the communication barrier and or confusion leave soon after arriving. The restaurant has always been packed when I have been there, with Chinese customers that is. Is this business enough to satisfy the owners of China Chilli, or would they target staff with better english skills? The problem being we know that cash rates for employment are set around $10 per hour in a lot of china town eateries and the student with better english skills can get work for $20 elsewhere so I cant see this changing in a hurry. All of this is a shame as I like the restaurant, the decor and its food. The Ipad ordering is a great idea but an introductory explanation of how to order and what the buffet price includes or doesn't include would secure the business of local patrons. Fix these few things up and add a liquor license so that we can enjoy an ice cold beer whilst devouring the super spicy hot pot - for which the owners would then have a winning combination.

Wow!! Food was amazing. Service was excellent. Waiters were so helpful. Loved the iPad ordering system. Our first time dining today and we will be back on the weekend. Can't wait to try the hot pot. :)

Worst experience dinning ever! Who cant speak chinese shouldnt eat here. Only one Ipad available to order for all tables and their staffs cant explain to customers how to order due to very weak English. The order system doesnt look like it works well as we ordered twice same things and spent more than 30 minutes to wait and got no food until we asked the manager (we cant ask other staffs because noone understood English), we found out she cannot speak a word of English either. Finally, she called someone to come to talk to us and the explaination is kitchen is closed!!!??? Plus, the dishes are not worth to pay for.

Delicious and you get an Ipad while you're here. Loved the use of the iPad menu for ordering and the selection of condiments at the back. This place has great service with each staff ready to assist. Their selection of hot pot is excellent and the additional meats and veggies are fresh.<br/>One suggestion though is please open sooner than midday on a Sunday. I was craving hot pot for breakfast and not lunch.

To expensive and bad service. The food is over priced and the service is terrible as thay don't speak good English and have no idea what u want. There pictures of there food are deseving. When u order a veg and meat dish there is more veg and specks I mean SPECKS of meat. I couldn't even see the meat but thay were shore there was meat there. won't be going there again.

With the number of Asian eateries down Gouger Street, it’s only fitting that the China Chilli restaurant opens it’s doors along this popular cafe strip. As their signage suggests, this place specialises in two things; Sichuan cuisine and hot pots.