Alice Garden Restaurant

57 Oduduwa Way, Ikeja GRA | Instagram | 0909 709 9999

It was a random Friday; my best friend and I were looking for a non-bank-breaking restaurant to celebrate her birthday. The occasion itself was weeks away, but I don’t like Lagos to catch my pocket off-guard – or “gbe mi l’handicap” – so I like to stay prepared.

My friend shared Alice Garden’s (a Chinese/Korean restaurant) profile with me on Instagram. I was immediately a bit sceptical because the account name sounded like some random Lagos mummy called Alice — ‘Alice_Lagos57’. See what I’m saying?

Plus, there were so many pictures of people with the restaurant’s (admittedly) gorgeous décor; I could barely find any pictures of food and there was no menu on the page. After some skilled detective work — if I do say so myself — I found some parts of the menu on Google Maps and the pricing seemed decent, like we wanted. Alice Garden was a go 👍🏾

Walking into the restaurant, I was in awe of how beautiful it was; every corner of the space had picturesque décor. I had stepped out of struggle-ridden Lagos into some kind of Eden. The staff were very polite and even helped us take some fire pictures, correct with the angles and everything. The music was great too; they played old-school bops that literally had me karaoke-ing and dancing.

BUT no be atmosphere we go chop, abi? I was hoping the food would be equally as enjoyable, if not more. First up, I have to point out that the wait for our meals was quite long – long enough for us to have almost finished our cocktails by the time the food was served.

The standard price for their cocktails was about N4000, a bit pricier than cocktails at more casual dine-in restaurants, but not so much that you’d say, “Ahan! What is inside the cocktail sef?” I had a Long Island Iced Tea, while my friend had a Caribbean Punch. The Caribbean Punch was flavourful with just the right tinge of alcohol — made me regret ordering my Long Island, which was just okay*.

(*To be honest, I had never had a Long Island Ice Tea before then, so I didn’t have anything to compare it to. My go-to cocktail is Sex on the Beach, but they didn’t have that so I just picked anything on the menu.)

About the menu… something weird happened. The servers said I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of it, which made me realise that they intentionally didn’t share their menu online. Why though? 💀 Like, they don’t want people to know what they’re getting into?

Anyway, the food finally arrived and thankfully, they were big portions. I had the Shanghai-Style Fried Noodles, which I found a bit underwhelming. The spices weren’t hitting right and I could taste more veggies than noodles. My friend’s Fried Rice with Shrimps tasted exactly like it was supposed to. They weren’t stingy with the shrimps and the meal tasted like standard Chinese fried rice. Again, I slightly regretted my choice, but such is life.

We decided to satisfy our sweet tooths with a little ice cream for dessert and boy, was it disappointing! They served us two small scoops of — what I think was — Fan Ice cream and charged us N1k 😳 The lack of options was also disappointing; they had just vanilla and strawberry flavours. But, true to the Alice Garden Restaurant theme, the presentation was cute. That counts for something? I’m not sure.

Now, it would basically be a crime to visit a Chinese restaurant without having some Bubble Tea, and we’re not criminals, so we indulged. Their Galaxy Milk Tea with black bubble came in the CUTEST bottle. The tea was, again, decent but not enough to warrant the price. I’ve had better Bubble Tea, as well, but I did appreciate how well-cooked the Boba was.

POSTSCRIPT

I’d go to Alice Garden again, but more for my feed than the food

verdict

DAMAGE

Shanghai-Style Fried Noodles – N5500

Fried Rice with Shrimps (bowl) – N3000

Long Island Ice Tea / Caribbean Punch — N4000

Galaxy Milk Tea with Black Bubbles (Medium) — N3500

Ice Cream – N1000

PARKING

Decent, can probably take about 10 cars

Oyinda is a writer and lover of knowledge. When she's not reading random stuff on the internet, or putting finger to keyboard, you'll find her chopping the life of her head.