| rev:text
| - I give 3.5 to 4 stars for food. But for service, it is probably a 2-star or less for me.
SERVICE:
Being Chinese, I know service is never the forte of an authentic Chinese restaurant. But I was still surprised at the lack of service and the total carelessness and cluelessness there. First, they don't seem to care which table orders what so the orders frequently got mixed up when I was there; the server would carry the food and wander around from table to table, asking if anyone ordered this. So I had to watch the plates whenever the server carried them out from the kitchen and stopped her to give mine to me, because the server was walking AWAY from me with my food on her tray.
Second, they started making dumplings 40 minutes after I ordered them. After the dumplings were finally ready, because they forgot who ordered it or simply did not care to check, they let it sit on the side table behind the cashier for another 15 minutes. Our dumplings were finally uncovered when the owner saw the dumplings sitting in the cashier area and started talking loudly in Chinese, "Whose dumplings are these?" I had to raise my hand to claim them. So we got our dumplings after we finished our meal and were about to pay the bill.
Third, it was difficult to get hold of a server/owner to ask if the dish was coming out anytime soon. They rushed by your table and never made any eye contact. They don't come by your table and fill your water diligently, or check on your order. The owner was especially warm and hospitable to her acquainted clientele when I was there, but was quite indifferent to others (I guess I shouldn't be surprised how they selectively treat people... in the Chinese way).
FOOD:
In terms of food, I don't have major complaints. The food was good, quite authentic, and fairly priced. But if you ask me to compare Chou's Kitchen to the street food I had growing up in China, Chou's does not come close in taste and quality.
We ordered
(1) Spicy Braised Beef Combination (in Chinese, "sliced lung by the married couple," a dish in chili oil, toasted peanuts, and cilantro with a mixture of beef slices and various beef parts, including stomach--it sounds gross but I dare you to try it). The best dish we got that night. To me, it was not spicy enough because it is traditionally a very hot dish from Sichuan Province. But the flavor was there and I was thrilled to see a dish Chinese restaurants in the U.S. don't normally serve, even though this is a STANDARD appetizer in almost any restaurant in China.
(2) Lamb skewer. Pretty disappointed. It has the similar cumin rub as the ones I would buy from the Xinjiang Uyghur vendors on a street cart in China. But the quality of the lamb was so bad and almost inedible: it was predominantly fat and connective tissues, and the very small amount of lean meat was tough and overcooked.
(3) Fried beef buns (in Chinese, "water-fried beef buns"). So-so. Too much dough for my liking and too little filling. Also, not juicy enough.
(4) Soybean Paste Noodle (a soupless "mix-it-yourself" cold noodle with cubed ham, sliced cucumber, and a soybean meat sauce). It was extremely basic. The noodle was an alkaline noodle, so it was yellower and more elastic than the average soup noodles. It was a filling dish, but nothing special, and quite bland.
(5) Dumplings with Pork and Napa Cabbage. Yes these are the dumplings that came grossly late so we had to box all of them. For 5 bucks they were great, much better than the ones from the frozen section at a Chinese grocery store. But they were NOT worth the 1.5+ hour wait. I would recommend this dish to people who like homemade Chinese dumplings because they are delicious, not because they are the watery relatives of potstickers. But if they don't come at the end of your meal, you should probably cancel the order.
All in all, it was a decent Chinese eatery with some management/service issues. I saw some items on the menu that I don't usually see elsewhere and they are quite good. But still, these are basic, entry-level Chinese food items that are quick to prepare and hard to mess up. I would probably come back and hope to see an improvement in the structureless service.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)