Yen Ching

Flat out, without a doubt… The. Worst. Chinese. American. Food. I. Have. Ever. Had. For the love of God. Watered down sweet and sour and all. The only mildly palatable items are the things they bought pre-​made, i.e. spring rolls and krab Rangoon. STAY AWAY!!! If you choose life that is…

Meh, maybe I chose the wrong items. Went with chicken chow mein, sweet and sour chicken, and chicken phad Thai. Sorry to say the phad Thai was the best option from this Chinese menu. This hits close to home, considering it’s the closest Chinese food to my place. Wanted to prove the reviews wrong, but my girlfriend and myself will keep searching for our Chinese.

When I there no one else was in the front of the restaurant; no customers and no employees. After waiting several minutes, I had to go back in the kitchen and ask to be waited on. I should have keft.
The food was horrible. Ordered Mongolian beef which less than a dozen small pieces of beef and the rest veggies.

The sesame chicken is fantastic! We ordered takeout, and the service was fantastic! We will definitely be eating here regularly!

Awful. We ordered some take out when we first moved here. Got 3 different types of chicken– they came all looking like the exact same thing but with different veggies strewn in there. Everything was spongey and didn’t taste fresh.

Gross, just gross.
We ordered a two person combo with kung pao chicken and almond chicken, a hot and sour soup and a wonton soup. First off, the soups, both of them, were absolutely disgusting. The wonton soup did not have any wontons and was instead a thick gelatinous goo with no taste at all. The hot and sour was neither, instead it just tasted like watered down putrid vinegar.
The appetizers, barbecue pork, crab rangoon and egg rolls, were acceptable. The entrées were not quite as gross as the soup, but they were also pretty bad. The sauce for the almond chicken did not taste like anything but was salty gravy. The kung pao chicken was bad as well, in that it was 99.9 percent celery with a tiny bit of chicken and a watery, tasteless sauce.
I’m SO not coming back to this place.

Absolutely DISGUSTING! Never again. Worse part is these jerks sprung an additional $ 3.00 delivery charge at MY DOOR (when they offer free delivery on Grub Hub). Bullshit! The soup tasted like top ramen, the chicken and pork were bone dry, and the sauces look like vomit. I will NEVER order or eat their food again. Horrible!

Second delivery. Still amazed. Less than 30 minutes from order to delivery, $ 29 to feed a family of 4, everything was incredibly fresh, delivery was free, we had chicken chow mein and chicken fried rice, pot stickers and hot and sour soup and everything was so good and tasted homemade. I had to look up the number but I’m saving it in my phone now :-)

Yen cheng lunch specials ate the best. Use to go all the time. Friendly staff and good food for Mountlake terrace. I recommend the mandrin fried shrimp. Good stuff

Update: I have waited again a bit to write my review beacuse I wanted to give the newset owners time to settle in. Yen Ching has been in the Mountlake forever .it was RUBYS chinses before that and both places were the best Chinese food in this end of town. We have been customers for as long as we have been married at this location (30 years) But now, no more! I have tried the place at least 5 times over the last year and a half and the food is just bland, no real flavor to speak of .I can get that at Safeway’s Deli’s. Don’t bother

HAIR IN MY FOOD!!! Horrible food!!! It took them an hour and half to get to my house, food was cold, there was hair in my soup, I ordered pot stickers and only got 3, ordered hot and sour soup which was cold a NO flavor, the wonton soup was sitting in a water broth, sweet and sour chicken was soggy and cold, beef was mushy and veggies were way over cooked!

this place has been here forever, my wife and I figured if their still in business they must be doing something right. Without a doubt the worst food we have ever had. The hot and sour soup tasted like warmed up soy sauce, the general tso’s was soggy as if was sitting in sauce all day. There was nothing that was edible, unfortunately we had it delivered and so we had no choice but to just take the loss. Live and learn, NEVER AGAIN.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! These guys came through with the best Housewarming Gift that Washington has ever seen. My brother and his wife had invited all their friends over to celebrate their new house. I am several states away and needed to deliver a present – and fast. I did a quick Google search and opted for bringing Good Fortune to the new home. The online ordering was super easy (too easy to make for a good gift), so I gave them a call and asked them if they could throw in 50 Fortune Cookies with my order of appetizers. In true Asian fashion, they said, «50? How about 60?!» The order was delivered promptly and much to the driver’s surprise, my brother knew nothing about his surprise delivery. Teehee.
They loved the crab rangoons! And the masses of Good Fortune.

My sister’s review got pulled. Wonder why? /​s
Our «broccoli beef» was basically a bunch of nuked veggies with a small handful of beef you’d find in a diet frozen meal, with no broccoli to be seen. There is a photo of it in the album, uploaded date was ⁸⁄₁₆.
I laughed when I opened the container of egg flower soup. It looked like clear boiled water with some egg whites mixed in along with some tiny pieces of onion.
The honey-​walnut prawns were actually OK but I was still annoyed at paying almost $ 40 for what was probably the most unsatisfying meal I’ve ever had. My sister and I started to eat the fortune cookies and found they were stale as heck… of course. I can’t believe how cheap this place is.

We just love this place. The waitress is very friendly and kind. The food is excellent and brought out FAST.
We go here twice a month usually. We are just in love with this place. It is also very reasonable. Convenient location as well, plenty of parking (usually)

Am I eating at the same place as the other reviewers?! Where are all these four-​star reviews coming from? Maybe I’m ordering the wrong things? Whatever it is, I just have not been impressed by Yen Ching.
It’s a fine — and when I say ‘fine’ I mean ‘edible’ — option for Chinese food in a neighborhood where there aren’t really a lot of options. I’ve never eaten in, have always gotten takeout, but the service has always been very pleasant and friendly. The owners seem genuinely caring and welcoming.
The food, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Nothing bad, but nothing great, either. Everything is bland. Even the Kung Pao chicken, which is supposed to be spicy! I’ve asked for chili sauce in the past, but it was never included in the end, so I’ve had to douse everything in Sriracha to feel something. It’s probably pretty telling that they’re in MLT because it definitely seems like they are catering to primarily white-​person tastebuds. Well, this white person likes a little zest from her food!
Dishes are well-​cooked, but make sure to have your own sauces on standby.

Sadly disappointed. I loved using the Eat 24 app to order food and it came within the stated amount of time but I will not be ordering from here again. We picked this spot as they had crab Rangoon, one of my favorites. I was super disappointed by the lack of filling in the Rangoon. Then the sesame chicken was soggy and the sauce was sour. I ate literally one bite and tossed the rest. Sad.

The new owners are very eager to please… if something isn’t to your liking just say so.
The food is better than I remembered under the previous owners. Pretty run of the mill Chinese food.

Dear previous Yen Ching Management–
1. Congrats on retiring. 2. Disappointed I didn’t know this was happening, I would have binge ate here for a week before they transferred ownership. 3. What a bummer they kept the name…
Sincerely (and missing you),
Keli
Now on to the new place (I’ll bump it to a four star once people realize it’s NOT THE SAME):
— Food, meh, not bad. Lunch is a deal. I’ve had much worse Chinese. I wish we had better Chinese in the North End. This isn’t bad compared to some of the other local places (based on reviews on here, I really gotta try T &T Seafood).
— Service: little bit of a language barrier/​accent is thick, but the main lady I’ve had last few times is nice and very punctual. (She was training on my first visit and has really taken her job to heart)
I’ll keep eating here, I just have to remember it’s not the same.
Real Yen Ching is dead to me now.
RIP little fried apples dessert things, snow pea chicken and their recipe for sizzling rice soup (mainly, Chef, you were amazing!) I’ll also miss the «used to be chubby» lady. I never knew her name, but she lost a crazy amount of weight by walking. Good for her!

It’s taken me weeks to work up the strength to write an update.
Yen Ching was my favorite Chinese restaurant. We went 2 – 3 times a month, sometimes more, sometimes less, but as a testament to my loyalty, I’ve been the reigning Duchess of Yen Ching for nearly a year.
But then, the owners sold the business to the previous chef. who then went and changed every single recipe on the menu. WTF? I ordered hot and sour, which was the best hot and sour in Seattle, and couldn’t even eat it. It had chunks of meat in it and was based in a beef broth? I ordered a vegetable dish and I literally couldn’t eat any of it because it smelled like old socks. Everything was really bad.
The saving grace, I guess, is that the new owner (who was serving us the meal), went to great lengths to ask what I did or did not like about the dishes. She even offered to cook me something else for free. But my heart was already broken, and we left. Maybe when the wounds aren’t so fresh, I’ll go back and try something else. For now? I’m on the lookout for other Chinese restaurants on the north end.