Since my parents have moved to the Charlotte area, I have been looking for a Chinese restaurant similar to the great Chinese food that we had up north, and I definitely found it here. Chong Chin is a great little hole in the wall Chinese restaurant that delivers very good food for very little money.
Appearance: When looking for a good Chinese restaurant, just like a good BBQ place, you really don't want to go somewhere that is trying to be fancy or trendy if you want to get good food. The décor of this place was kind of cheap and tacky and they had some popish Asian music playing. However like I said these are not bad things and the place practically screamed good Chinese food. Add to this that everything was very clean and well taken care of.
Service: Going in for lunch can be hit or miss with restaurants and this was defiantly a hit. I was greeted almost immediately at the door, and my order taken promptly. While there were only two other people in the restaurant the one server who was on duty did not slack off and food was delivered quickly and my glass was refilled as soon as it was empty.
Food: Besides the things mentioned above two things made me confident in the food before I even ate it. 1. When I walked in the staff that were on break were eating the restaurants food. 2. When the server walked into the kitchen to place the order I heard them talk to the kitchen staff in Chinese. I ordered the lunch special with general tso's chicken (basically what we call general gau's chicken up north) which ended up costing me $5.30 including tax and came with fired rice and a spring roll. The sauce was a little over cooked and the peas a bit starchy, but overall it far spaces some of the sickly sweet stuff that other trendier Chinese restaurant are selling for $8-12, and for only fiveish dollars it was more than a generous serving and filled me up well.
Overall, if you get the craving for Chinese food like I did skip out on the overpriced trendy places and the so so chain restaurants and give this place a try.