The Taste of China

Tasteless food. I always had to add salt or some sort of seasoning to everything. I was going here for a while out of convenience because it is right around the corner so walking to and from takes 3 minutes. I gave up. It is just consistently poor food.

Food is always fresh, never re-​fried, place is clean, people are nice and speak very good English, contrary to the stereotype! They are timely in their deliveries and they’ve only gotten my order. It’s not the type of place you would want to go in and sit down and eat and it’s not «authentic» Chinese cuisine, per se. BUT, this is awesome local takeout Chinese. Been ordering from them for years and I’ve had Chinese all around the tri-​state. Between that and coming from a family of chefs, you can trust me when I tell you that this is where you want to order from tonight.

I used to come here all the time for take out with a friend. We would get either the sesame chicken or general tso’s chicken with pork fried rice. One order was enough to feed both of us. Thinking back, the food wasn’t anything out of the ordinary from other Chinese take out places. But we lived in the neighborhood and the food was cheap with huge portions.

i happened to come here because i missed the train going to my place in Stapleton; i decided that it’s better to get something to eat instead of spending time waiting for the next train to come during a weekday rush hour period. what surprised me was seeing a white young woman at the counter getting customers’ orders and instructing the cooks on what to prepare next. i told her about my observation; she & her male friend (who’s also white) were amused. i don’t know why they don’t have the usual Chinese-​looking woman I would see in most neighborhood Chinese food places but it’s refreshing to see the unusual here. I think it’s because the neighborhood’s primarily white (I could be wrong LOL). anyway, the chicken chow mein that i ordered was quickly prepared by one of the two Chinese-​looking cooks. it didn’t have noodles & instead used bean sprouts; taste’s not bad as I munched on it while on the train on my way home.

I used to visit this restaurant more frequently when I was younger. I guess that’s why I remember things being so good. This time was different. I had the Sesame Chicken Combo Platter. It came with fried rice and an egg roll. The only thing decent about that meal was the rice. If you want good rice, look no further. The egg roll was a tad on the bland side, and I’m not sure what they gave me was even chicken. On some pieces, there was so much fat on the chicken that it was making me sick. On other pieces, the chicken was hard to chew and way over-​cooked. The food was alright I guess, but now we get to the weird part. While I was sitting there with my brother, the owner of the place kept glancing over at us and gesturing towards us while she talked in whispers (in Chinese, of course) to her fellow workers. At one point she told a guy to stand in front of our line of sight to her so we couldn’t read her lips, I guess. The whole thing was just very shady and made us extremely uncomfortable. Is that how they treat their paying customers? So two stars for the okay food, but I probably won’t be going back. There are way better Chinese restaurants on Staten Island, and the others don’t make you feel uncomfortable.

The chicken in the chicken and string beans was so unlike Chinese food chicken that usually scares me out of my mind! I ate it, and then ate more! The other dishes were average and not needing an honorable mention. I guess I’ll keep ordering from here. Till something grosses me out.