China Garden — Restaurant in Auburn

“It’s not THAT bad,” — waitress and employee who served us.

Let’s start with the good. Ambience was old-school Chinese stop, good decor, ambience is fine, relatively clean. The beef and broccoli dish was genuinely good and probably cooked very recently.

Now to the bad and the egregious; the rice was frozen bagged (the kind you cook in the microwave), the Moo Shu was devoid of sauce (try just plain beef, pork, chicken, etc); we were told the chef “wouldn’t do substitutions”, the dumplings were food service store bought, and the customer service in general could best be described as “bored & ready to leave work”. Altogether we did not enjoy our experience.

I combed through older reviews to gauge why this place had such high marks when it seemed to be so run down—the answer seems to be in a recent change in management. Reviews such as “why complain when someone is cooking food for you” with 5-stars seem to be the only positive critics left for this restaurant, which is sad because they ignore the fact that food isn’t free, and is instead a transaction predicated on the promise that it will be good food (which can’t just as easily be bought at the local Walmart). This said, China Garden fails the expectations you’d have. I would not...

My wife and I ordered dinner from here tonight. My wife is vegan and I am pescatarian so she ordered a vegetarian dish and I ordered the Veggie Delight and added shrimp. When she arrived home with the food and I opened mine the strong pungent odor of old seafood hit me in the face, I quickly closed it. I told my wife that the shrimp was bad she asked to smell it and agreed it was off. I was completely out done because she noticed the sign said they had a health score of 97. I decided to call the restaurant and explained our situation to them just to see if they would at least offer to correct this. I was told that the shrimps strong odor was because they are so fresh. I told her no ma’am fresh seafood does not smell like this. She said yes it’s because it’s really fresh. I told her no and because of this experience we would not eat there again. I absolutely do not recommend anyone eat at this restaurant. I was raised in a coastal town and spend a lot of time on beaches on the southeast US. I know fresh seafood and I know what’s trash and unfortunately the food I...

This place is very hit or miss. Typical “American style” Chinese food. Every time I try a new Chinese food restaurant I give it the ultimate and defining test. Egg roll and pork fried rice. That’s it for my first order. If you can’t make an egg roll and good pork fried rice…. I’m out! That being said I got egg rolls and pork fried rice a few times on my lunch break here. It was just fine. Did the trick. No issues. I decided to dig deeper into the menu and get a few other things last time I went. One of the entrees was ok, other really bad. The fired dumplings were frozen, deep fried, and shoved in a to go box. By the time I opened the box, it was like a chunk of meat wrapped in wet paper towels. Trashed. I’m only coming here in the future for egg rolls and pork fried rice. Where’s all the good...