Golden Carriage Restaurant — Restaurant in Courtenay

Old school, nostalgic family run restaurant that offers the popular Chop Suey Nation fare (Southern Chinese cuisine adapted to suit the tastes of small towns and not found in traditional restaurants), and also authentic favourites many CBCs will remember from their childhoods.

Food - The portions are absolutely massive for how they are priced. We had the Singapore curry vermicelli and asked them to kick the spice up a few notches. It did not disappoint - springy noodles with a bit of crispiness, clocked full of eggs and shrimp, and just the right level of curry for us. Also had the mapo tofu, which leaned more heavily towards the numbing ma than the hot la and had a good amount of chilli oil, but could have had bean taste. Lastly we had wonton just because who doesn’t love wonton, and ordered a small bowl. The bowl that came was not small. We asked if there was a mistake, and nope their small is really just that large. The wontons were plump and juicy, and the skins were thin and smooth. Surprisingly it came with some barbeque pork and broccoli.

Service - The dishes came out quickly, and service was attentive and friendly. We appreciated that they looked over every so often to make sure we had enough water for the tea, but otherwise left us to our meal. After we had finished they came over to chat, and shared a bit of history and...

I’ve only ordered from the golden carriage once, so many they were just not having a great night, but even so, I won’t be ordering from them again.

Order: deep fried chicken wings create your own 5 item combo (sweet and sour pork, bbq pork fried rice, deep fried won tons, breaded almond chicken, spring roll). Once I opened my order I realized I forgot to order anything with veggies 🤦‍♀️

Pros: portion sizes fair prices packaging was well organized they gave extra sauces deep fried won tons were excellent

Neutral: the spring roll was a standard spring roll the chicken wings were properly cooked. I don’t like batter on my wings, but that’s just a personal preference

Cons: the breaded almond chicken didn’t have any ground almond on it, but more importantly the batter was too thick so it ended up undercooked and gross the fried rice was really dry and had no flavour to it the sweet and sour pork wasn’t sweet and sour… it was like a weird combo of sweet and sour and honey garlic which was...

We usually have good food here. We order off the menu and have never had the buffet. The service is usually good and the food hot and fresh. Tonight - the Monday of Family Day weekend - they were full with 2 huge tables of Kiwanis Courtenay members celebrating Chinese New Year, a couple of other reserved tables and lots of to go orders. They found us a table in the back of the restaurant more than big enough for the 3 of us. We said if they had to seat more people we'd happily share the table. The food was excellent. The best deep fried wontons we've ever had (as you can tell by the photo of the best empty plate). They had red table clothes and oranges on the table for New Year's and little shrimp crackers. (So sweet) We ended up sharing the table with a lovely couple and had a great time at dinner. Thanks to Robert from the Kiwanis for the the yummy cake and happy birthday to the gentleman celebrating his 94th birthday! Thank you to the very attentive and...