We tried Lincoln’s takeaways with the worst hygiene ratings

Out of hundreds of restaurants in Lincoln, there are only three takeaways with a one-star hygiene rating, and we tried them all.

Every place serving food needs a hygiene rating from council inspectors, and the vast majority get the top score — so it’s newsworthy on the rare occasions we report that a businesses received poor marks.

The latest business to be slammed with a one star hygiene rating is Sincil Garden, a Chinese takeaway on Sincil Bank, after inspectors visited in June and the rating became public in August.

This made it the third takeaway in Lincoln to score one star for hygiene, along with The Modern, an Indian on the lower High Street, and Pizza Palace on Monks Road.

But despite the hygiene ratings, is their food actually bad? ‘Don’t be so fast to judge,’ would say some of our readers. There was only one way to find out.

In this instance, we wanted to try them all and see for ourselves how it tasted.

Please note that the pictures were taken by our professional photographer, at his home, using his own crockery. All the orders were paid for by us (no freebies). All food hygiene ratings are correct at the date of publication.

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The Modern Indian

• 1/5 food hygiene rating
• 4/5 stars on TripAdvisor
• 4.2/5 on Google business reviews

First up was The Modern Indian, and a chicken jalfrezi and chicken tikka were ordered.

Mixed reviews came for the dishes, with both having good flavour with the sauces.

The chicken didn’t seem very high quality for the jalfrezi and the chicken tikka was a bit cold.

Our tasters said they would order the tikka again, but not the jalfrezi.

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Pizza Palace

• 1/5 food hygiene rating
• 4.5/6 on JustEat
• 4.9/5 on FoodHub
• 3.5/5 on Google business reviews

Next up was Pizza Palace on Monks Road, and a Texas pizza was ordered along with a chicken strips burger with curly fries and a garlic bread.

The pizza was a fairly standard takeaway one, with nothing alarming to report.

There was a bit too much sauce on there, but apart from that, it was nice.

The garlic bread had a good amount of cheese on it but was slightly overcooked.

The burger was very tasty, the chicken was better quality than what you get at McDonald’s, but there was one blatant error with the order.

A strawberry cheesecake was ordered from Pizza Palace’s dessert section, and a bottle of Yazoo arrived instead! At least they got the strawberry flavour right.

Once more, the question of whether you’d eat from here again was split, with the person who ordered the pizza saying yes, but the person who ordered the burger saying no.

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Sincil Garden Chinese

• 1/5 food hygiene rating
• 4.5/6 on JustEat
• 4.3/5 on FoodHub
• 3.5/5 Google business reviews

Finally, there was the Chinese takeaway from Sincil Garden, and this received rave reviews.

Sweet and sour chicken was ordered, as well as satay chicken, both with egg fried rice.

“Probably one of the best satay chickens I’ve had in Lincoln,” was one of the comments on the meal.

Both were very impressed by the quality of the food, saying that they were surprised by the hygiene rating in comparison to the food.

Both said they would eat from Sincil Garden again, praising the flavour and the crispiness of the chicken.

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All in all, the taste and quality of the food didn’t seem to be reflected in the hygiene ratings — but don’t forget the city council environmental health inspectors do this job to make sure people are safe.