Food review: Beijing, Church Stretton, Shropshire

We're not going out on a limb by describing Beijing as being a little underwhelming.

The good people of TripAdvisor use far harsher terms like 'terrible', 'average at best', 'disappointed' and 'absolutely awful'. Poor old Sue, of Northwich, didn't even get to sample the food, having been turned away because she was alone. Bless her little cottons.

Thankfully, they didn't turn me away when I visited alone for a midweek supper. But then perhaps that's no surprise. I was the only customer. As I surveyed an empty room, looking for signs of life, it started to dawn on me that perhaps the TripAdvisor crowd knew something I didn't. It's a pity Sue, of Northwich, wasn't passing through. We could have shared a table and compared notes.

Of course, not everyone dislikes Beijing. Credit where credit's due. Of its 30 Tripadvisor reviews, a third are average, poor or terrible, a fifth are very good and the remainder are excellent. I think the little-used 'poor' category is about right. There's nothing excellent about a restaurant with dodgy carpets, missing menu items or overcooked food. But, being fairer than a UN negotiator, it's a little harsh to call it terrible. Terrible's when the food's inedible, when the front of house staff usher you out without so much as a 'good evening' and when there's neither skill nor commitment to the task.

There are a number of terrible restaurants in Shropshire – Beijing's not one of them.

It's just somewhere that is devoid of redeeming features or qualities. Twenty out of 21 TripAdvisor reviewers is a pretty high ratio.

Phew. So, where to start? Like all the best reviews; at the very beginning.

Beijing is part of the Old Copper Malt House, a traditional pub that's seen better days. It's located down a few steps and visitors are seated at spit-and-sawdust tables and chairs that might in the long-forgotten past have been referred to as 'new'. It's unprepossessing. A fat, sad fish sits in a goldfish bowl, unable to swim as much as it might because of its corpulence. The walls need a lick of paint. And the carpet should be changed.

Now. Without further ado. It's awful. We'll turn down the volume on the vitriol – and, I know, I'm mixing my metaphors, but I kinda like that and it's easy to understand – but restaurants need to make an impression. And the impression Beijing's carpet makes is this: 'Old, tired, has-been, yesterday's man, complacent, a little shabby and we really can't be bothered.'

Service wasn't anything to write home about. The guy who was waiting tables was very polite and pleasant; arguably the best aspect of dinner. He jumped in a little too soon on one occasion, offering to take away a half-eaten starter. He just didn't have enough to do and was a little over-enthusiastic. I'm guessing he felt like the fish. Alone, bored, all eyes on him. The advantage of being the only customer at a Chinese is, of course, that dinner doesn't take long, which is great if the venue's in need of some TLC and the food isn't up to much. And so I ordered within minutes of arriving, selecting a yuk sung to start and a chicken satay with egg fried rice as a main.

The yuk sung wasn't available. "I'm sorry," said the apologetic waiter. "We don't have any lettuce to put it in."

I'm not quite sure how a restaurant can run out of lettuce at 6.30pm when its first customer has just arrived. It suggests a poor ordering policy by the kitchen. If you run out of something, you go and buy another one, so that you can sell it at a profit to your customers. It's a simple deal. And if it's something as simple as a lettuce and your restaurant ingredient supplier isn't calling that day, you pop to the shop down the road and buy one from a supermarket. It's not difficult. Use a lettuce, buy a lettuce, make a few bob, send the customer home happy. Or, if you're not that bothered, don't.

I reprised my order. Chicken satay sticks to start followed by kung po chicken with egg fried rice. The chicken was overcooked and the sauce no more than okay. It was a little watery and lacked heat. I was hungry and ploughed through them without being moved to a smile. It was joyless, perfunctory food.

The main was equally average. The egg fried rice had the texture of microwave rice – come on, we've all been there, haven't we – with flecks of scramble egg running through it. It was overcooked and its relationship with a wok must have been quicker and shorter than Gordon Ramsay's temper.

The kung po was the highlight – a word I use cautiously – of an otherwise disappointing dinner. The chicken and vegetables had been cooked with reasonable skill and though the sauce wasn't particularly flavoursome or memorable, unlike the carpet, it was none-too-shabby.

The fat lady was singing and it was time to go. There was confusion over a VAT receipt: I'm not sure the waiter had been asked to provide one before. Eventually, it came and a wearisome evening was at an end.

We're the world's most generous reviewers at Weekend Towers. We do our best to support local, independent businesses and mark up, rather than down. But there were so few things to enjoy about restaurant 20-out-of-21 that it's hard to find reason to award more than two out of five. And, I suspect, if we'd appointed a guest reviewer like, say, Craig from Strictly, Beijing might well have received a mark lower, or maybe a-mark-and-a-half.

It's not often that I'm in complete accord with the masses who subscribe to TripAdvisor.

There are frequent errors and omissions, the criteria applied are fuzzy and there's a lack of transparency from reviewers. On this occasion, however, the general public are spot on.

Tired, dated and lacking in enthusiasm, vibrancy, style or quality, Beijing is the antithesis of its namesake.

By Andy Richardson