Golden City Restaurant — Restaurant in Ontario

Our nearby Chinese food restaurant was closed, so we tried Golden City. Our order was:

Wanton Soup Hot and Sour Soup Spring Rolls Dinner for Three including: Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls Chicken Fried Rice Egg Rolls General Tao's Chicken Beef and Vegetables with Almonds Fortune Cookies

Price: The price was average for the food.

Atmosphere: Poor. The location is walk-in only and doesn't look very welcoming. The order taker is behind sheet plastic attached to 2x4's and communicates through a speaker. In the meanwhile, you'll wait in a small, fairly plain area with no seating.

Service: No particular service. Interacting through a sheet of plastic and a speaker isn't a great experience. I did see the order deal politely with a difficult customer that was being rude/difficult. However, the same person also asked a lady that had come in with a grocery cart of groceries to take her cart and go outside to wait for 20 minutes. Not an unfair position, but alternate approaches like pushing the cart closer to the wall could have been used.

Food: Wanton Soup - Wife had it, its her favourite soup, she said it was good. Hot and Sour Soup - My favourite. I judge a Chinese food restaurant by this as my metric on how good it will be. The soup had an odd chemical flavour to it that I couldn't figure out and haven't run across before. The body of the soup was thinner than it should be, the flavour was very weak, and it had almost no heat to it. Spring Rolls - Average. Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls - Sauce was good, but slightly watery. Chicken balls were good. Chicken Fried Rice - Very flavourless. I almost never use soy sauce, but had to add it to get some flavour. Egg Rolls - Wife had them and seemed happy enough. General Tao's Chicken - No heat at all. Flavour was also lacking. Although nice that it didn't have the bright colouring often added to this dish. Beef and Vegetables with Almonds - Nice. But again, it was lacking seasoning. Fortune Cookies - Standard.

Overall - Ok food. But generally lacking seasoning/flavour/spice. Walk-in experience isn't great. ...

Ordering: 5/5

Called on a Saturday evening around dinner time (presumably a busy time). Phone was answered after two rings and order was expertly taken. Friendly staff member read order back to me to confirm everything. Asked if food could be ready for 5:30 - she said they could accommodate.

Pickup: 5/5

Showed up at 5:25 and they were just packing my order. This was great - I thought for sure they'd just make it after hanging up and hold it; but they actually delayed starting my order to time it for when I wanted it. This to me was impressive, as they had about 7 people cooking and packing bags (clearly busy). Payment was easy and fast, and they gave my son a small packaged cookie while we waited the couple minutes for our order.

Accuracy: 5/5

Everything requested was in the bag. It was a big order with 10+ items and nothing was missed. Plenty of packaged soy sauce and plum sauce.

Food: 5/5

The whole family enjoyed it! The spring rolls were hot and crispy. The lemon chicken was generous. The spicy noodles had a nice kick but didn't melt your face. Big pieces of fresh veggies all throughout. The kids loved the steamed dumplings.

Price 5/5

For the amount of food we ordered (we literally made a buffet at home), we fed five people day 1 and then had enough for everyone to have some more a second day. The price was very reasonable.

Overall 5/5

Thank you for a great dinner to celebrate my dad's birthday! We'll definitely add Chinese food back to the family rotation after such a...

There are 2 features I look at when patronizing a restaurant- food quality and customer service.

While the food here has always been excellent, and until New Years eve , I had never had a bad experience with their service....I now will never dawn their doorstep or order again due to the complete lack of respect /customer service New Years eve 2015.

I went in early in the day Dec. 31, 2015 to order a large amount of food to serve 12 guests and was assured it would be ready at 5:45 pm. We hoped to eat by 6 pm as many guests were having to head out by 8 pm When I went in, it was not ready , and to make matter worse, I then waited just under 2 hours before it was ready.

To make matters worse , all the while that I waited, I heard them take orders on the phone, and promise it will be ready in 30 min, even though people who came to get food that was promised in 30 minutes had been waiting over 1.5 hours .

I voiced my frustration that night , and they offered profuse apologies, they were obviously empty apologies , as the continued to take orders and promise unrealistic 30 minute service.....apologies mean nothing if you cant take care of customers.

Too bad because the food is great- but I wont reward bad customer service by continuing to go there. Lots of other great places with great food and great...