| rev:text
| - I have several reasons for giving this the outlier review (I'm giving it a full 5 stars versus everyone else's 1-2 stars).
First of all, I don't go there for the ambiance, and as such, in this yelp, ambiance doesn't even count for 10% of my opinion for a Chinese (in this case, Hong Kong regional) restaurant. The reason for this is simple: I have never (NEVER) been to a super clean and trendy upscale Chinese restaurant in this country that has had food even CLOSE to the quality of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that serves up family recipes. I lived for four years in Manhattan and had a lovely sampling of Chinese food, but the highest quality authentic food came from Chinatown, which in NYC is dirty... the restaurants included. In San Francisco, I had great Chinese food at a similarly dingy and dimly lit place.
So to be fair, I am overlooking the atmosphere of Golden Wok and focusing instead on its food and waitstaff. The husband and wife team with their children are usually very pleasant and happy to see patrons. I am a regular patron (my whole family is), as well as our neighbors. It is kid friendly.
The egg rolls are good. I'm not an egg roll person myself, but I'll eat them from this place. However, I did notice that recently the order size has diminished to one egg roll per order instead of two.
If you like General Tso's Chicken (like what, 80% of people who go to Chinese restaurants), then I would highly recommend ordering it with white meat only and extra spicy. As-is, the dish is on the sweet side. Ordering it with the extra spice gives it the burn you're looking for. Ordering it with white meat only lets you bypass that whole "mystery meat" that many Americans swear is cat meat. The quality of the white meat is very good. I've ordered this exact dish for about five years from Golden Wok and have never once been disappointed. When done really well, it is better than PF Chang's Chang's Chicken, and when done regularly, it's still a good rival in taste but with more chicken than PF Chang's gives you, and without the wait that you always experience at PFCB.
I'm not sure what the yelper A.R. was thinking when he called the General Tso's bland, because I've yet to find a General Tso's Chicken at a restaurant in the Greater Pittsburgh area that even comes close to the flavor here. There's a place in Scott Township, and then there's PF Chang's, but it's hands-down more flavorful than the General from Sesame Inn, Panda Express, Panda Garden, and all of the places in the malls or which have all-you-can-eat buffets.
The other clear-cut winning dish that we've discovered is the chicken Mai Fun noodles. These are thin noodles. Their woks are seasoned well, and when they cook this dish you get a nice smoky flavor thrown in. The noodles are a favorite with my whole family. The vegetables are nice, but the white meat chicken (not special order, this is standard) is thinly sliced and palatable.
My neighbor and I bring guests to Golden Wok to help ensure that it stays in business because it's close to our home and has the de-facto best Chinese food in the South Hills when it comes to flavor. If I had to pick a second it would be Mark Pi's China Gate, but I would pick Golden Wok 9/10 times over that as well.
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