No. 1 Chinese Restaurant

This restaurant permanently closed in December. Now the spot is a Sushi restaurant. Super bummer.

A longtime friend called me saying he was at this place at that moment and wanted me to join him for lunch. I agreed! An ultra-​quick menu scan resulted in my picking Black Bean Chicken on Rice. The dish came with a choice soup (I chose Hot & Sour) and free tea.
My dish arrived promptly and it was very nicely presented (colorful sliced peppers make for beautiful appearance). For $ 7, it was pleasingly tasty and filling.
This location used to be a Greek eatery, as evident by the Mediterranean-​style wall décor! Why have they not changed it? Still, it was a very nice experience and I would patronize again.

Friendly, fast service, but VERY bland and greasy dishes.
We had a chow mein, sweet and sour pork, egg rolls, wonton soup, and ginger beef.
Ginger beef had absolutely NO FLAVOUR — very disappointing.
Chow mein was weird and flavourless noodles with gravy.
Egg rolls were pretty standard, but one of ours was cold inside?
Wonton soup was good
Sweet and sour pork was disappointing too.

Chinese food is hard to navigate, most places don’t do detailed descriptions on their menus, and you are lucky to get any pictures that could help. And often the servers are unable to describe what each item is in English. You just have to know what it is or take a gamble it is what you had wanted. It is sometimes hard to tell the whole of a mix bag of ingredients from a brief description, like «beef in XO sauce». I was awful at describing what I wanted and resorting to my grade school mandarin skills were no help. None the less I was still able to get what I wanted through gestures and visual description in broken English. Everything tasted as I had anticipated and this month’s Asian craving was quelled. I was done eating 20 minutes later, with hands oily, belly full, and heart filled with guilt.
It is with Chinese restaurants that I prefer taking out as a posed to dining in. Usually discounts are offered to make sales whilst not occupy seats. Today I got 5% off, and they had special take out bags to put my 6 dishes in. Each plastic bag came with vents for the air to circulate and condensation to disperse. By taking your meal and leaving, you don’t have to deal with staff that have possible language barriers and cultural differences that translate into them being rude. You get the same food without the tacky décor, loud chatter, and the occasional faux pas from other guests. Disgusting appetite destroying sights like teeth and nose picking in public. (True story at other places)
Would I go back? — No more than I would to any other Chinese restaurant, within a convenient distance of where I am at the time. In my opinion it all pretty much tastes all the same anywhere you go. Thought this may be the biases opinion of a trained Chinese cuisine customer, trained at birth.
Would I recommend it? — Not any more than any other Chinese place serving the exact same food, with almost identical prices, surrounded by similar knick knacks. I felt them to be a little too presumptuous to be christening themselves as «No.1». Over all this was an average Chinese restaurant serving average Chinese food. But they deliver so make them your call for a Chinese food craving you can’t deny.

Slow service. Got there before their lunch specials ends but they said it was too close to the end and will not honor the special. Food is mediocre and on the bland side.

My in-​laws, hubby and I went there for dinner. We found a bit weird of interior and setting as Chinese restaurant and seemed like family owned business. As they advertised, the Chef has over 20 year’s experience and have some Chef Signature dishes. But, we didn’t order it and even combo dishes.
Lamp in clay pot — Huge but didn’t taste good even a bit gamy.
Mixed seafood and meats w/​tofu in clay pot — not too greasy and salt.
Stir fried shrimps w/​eggs — Taste good and much better than other Chinese restaurant.
Stir fried gan lan w/​chopped garlic — It chopped in small potion in order to make the dish look bigger.
Overall, the dishes in reasonable price and portion especially it has less MSG or oily than we expected. There is no comparison w/​moderate even high-​end Chinese restaurant. It’s fairly enough to rate it as 3 star.

i love this place. I’ve ordered many times and they are so friendly.

I suffered from food poisoning the last two days after I ate their beef chop suey 5.95 lunch special. The food here makes you sick — don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Came here after the nice big «Grand Opening, Lunch Special $ 5.95 with Free Soup» beckoned to my buddy and I.
Parking is available on Boundary.
The place used to be Greek, and it looks like they didn’t even bother changing the murals on the wall. But it actually does *somewhat* look like China? Brought a smile to our faces.
The staff were very friendly (rare for most casual Chinese places). There is a lunch menu as well as a regular menu. Yes there are some items that are $ 5.95 indeed, but several items were in the $ 6 – 7 range instead.
Hot and sour soup — flavour was okay, but it was seriously lacking in the filling department. Hence the 3 stars instead of 4.
Shanghai fried noodle — one of the better ones in town. Decent mix of vegetables and meat.
Lemon chicken on rice — just like what it sounds like. I’m sure the lemon sauce comes out of some bucket in the kitchen, but you’re pretty much asking for mall food. In that respect, this place delivered. The chicken was nice and crispy.
Lastly, this place takes credit cards. Total shocker.
It’s places like these that make Burnaby Heights what it is. Beautiful.

Sitting inside this restaurant makes me think of when it used to be the Greek Restaurant ten or so years ago. All the restaurants after it have not painted over the mural of the Greek countryside and I’m glad they didn’t as you actually feel like you’re on a highway looking out towards a sunny countryside.
With that said, the food is decent. I liked the fact that you get a free soup with the lunch special and you also got a fortune cookie at the end (and yes, you also get free tea.)
If you’re up on the corner of Hastings and Boundary, this is definitely worth checking out.

It’s nice to have a Chinese restaurant that cooks up a good meal in the Burnaby Heights neighbourhood. Despite a constant turnaround of restaurants at this location (prior to No. 1 Chinese Restaurant’s arrival, this was the Danube), I’m hopeful that this new establishment will succeed.
Located on the northeast corner of Hastings and Boundary, this family-​owned operation cooks a hearty meal, robust in flavour, and all for a reasonable price. The stir-​fry is appetizing, not greasy or oily, and delicious to the last spoonful. Be sure to request plain rice if you’re having multiple meat and vegetable dishes.
The staff are friendly, the restaurant is well lit, and although there are two murals of a European countryside painted on adjacent walls, it’s a nice change to the conventional Chinese restaurant.
I came here for dinner so I can’t vouch for this, but I heard that the lunch specials give you the ol’ ‘bang for your buck’.
Since it’s still a very new restaurant, there are a few kinks that need to be ironed out. One suggestion is to have chopstick stands for our chopsticks and spoons. I honestly did not want to dirty the tablecloth.