Green Tea Restaurant — Restaurant in Bangor

Good evening, Me and my fiancèe were just in there having dinner. We wanted to have a date night, as we are both busy working two jobs during the week and never see one another. We have not had a casual date like this in months and the thought was wonderful. We decided on Green Tea over any restaurant because we like the quieter atmosphere and seating. We took time getting ready, and dressed up for the occasion. Keep in mind I have a chronic illness so I can rarely ever sit present at a restaurant, so this was a HUGE deal! When we arrived, we were greeted by a kind waiter who brought us to a table. We sat down and I decided I wanted different and more private seating. I had kindly asked when he came back over if we could sit in the private area with the closing doors. He was more than willing to seat us. We felt welcomed by his mannerism and we went to order drinks. We asked what they had for products, and he told us Pepsi. He then said that they were out of Pepsi. We have never heard that which is not his fault, but we were dissatisfied because we usually would not pick anything else. We ended up with Dr. Pepper & a Diet Pepsi (they only had diet Pepsi), and both drinks were not to our liking. The Diet Pepsi was watery and tasted old, and the Dr. Pepper was the same. We then ordered appetizers (Sushi Roll & Mini Platter) and gave it a go, as we wanted to hear out the food and not just judge based off drinks. We were given our appetizers with great service from our waiter. We started eating them, and they were not great. The food did not have much flavor, and it was cold. My fiancèe usually loves sushi and stated that it was probably the worst she has had at a restaurant. We then tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, even with it being a slow night, (so they should have had our food fresh and ready) and got our main course. Our main course was a Chicken Bento Box. We both got one. We tried the dumplings, Sweet Potato hand cut roll (which was our pick), Rice and Chicken with veggies. To be honest it was probably the most un-flavorful and cold meal that I have ever received at a restaurant. I even asked my fiancèe if the roll was meant to be cold, and she stated no. Maybe the restaurant does these rolls cold, but they tasted super bland and rubbery. At this point we were disappointed and honestly frustrated. We got called into work tonight as we work overnight so we had to leave early, but we get the check from our kind waiter, and it is 97 dollars. We had barely any food in our system, and we left extremely unhappy before work. The server is a keeper and he was extremely kind. None of this was his fault, and he truly deserves a raise. We will not be back to this establishment. Please if you see this review, test out the drink machines and make the food hot and fresh as appropriate. 97 dollars for this was not okay at all and we are still upset. We actually heard others in a different seating area complaining about how they disliked the food taste as well. Edit: Our stomachs have been hurting all night after eating this and my fiancèe got sick multiple times....

2nd edit I've been frequenting Green Tea a lot recently and have found certain things slipping (still my favorite restaurant though). I think management has been making some bad calls recently and their server turnover rate has gotten crazy. When I lived far away I used to come in maybe twice or so a year and be served by the same young lady each time. She was phenomenal as were all the other servers, and the overall staff seemed to stay the same over the years.

Then very roughly about a couple years ago I started to see people leave (alas my favorite server left right at the start of this transition, she was so sweet and professional) and the last half a year or more I've been served by a different person literally every time (I go at least once a month).

The food is still great, but it can be slow at times and always having a green server can be annoying when you just want to order your food and not have to remind them of things they forgot or don't know, especially since you're more familiar with the menu than they are. But I'm not blaming them. As a person who's worked in restaurants for years, I know why high turnover occurs. (I also heard through the grapevine that the managers are jerks.) Management needs to work on employee retainment (small bit of advice- if you don't know how, just ask your staff, they know exactly why they're leaving/struggling/unhappy/etc).

Anyway, I hope things get better and servers start to stick around. I also hope they aren't experiencing too much turnover in the kitchen.

Another small thing I noticed is that occasionally some plates seem to sit under the heat lamp for too long while waiting for other dishes to finish. This only happens occasionally but results in some things overcooking.

I hope to see more consistent, professional, knowledgeable service and consistent food.

For real tho.. I just miss the nice stemmed glassware and fresh flowers they used to set on every table. :'( I can't remember the last time I saw them set out table cloths. It was all the little things that blew me away when I first tried out this restaurant (8-ish?) years ago (and the all-important delicious food of course).

Sorry for writing so much. I am way too emotionally invested into this restaurant.

Original review My favourite restaurant. Finally a restaurant that knows what they're doing. The food always comes out consistent and fresh, the servers are always very professional and polite, and the menu selection is great. Oh and the atmosphere is very nice, tasteful, and elegant. The prices are comparable to a typical Chinese-American restaurant but the quality is the best I've seen amongst all the east-Asian restaurants I've been to and is the best restaurant in the Bangor area. I wish that more restaurants got things right like Green Tea.

Pros- ✓Food quality ✓Selection ✓Service ✓Prices ✓Atmosphere

Cons- × I live three hours away :'(

*Edit- I moved closer!...

Alright so I have been sitting here thinking about where to even start with this review. First of all, I would like to start out by saying NEVER rely on how many stars a place has until you try it.

This was my first time going to this restaurant and after seeing that it had many good reviews I decided to go ahead and try it. I have to say, this was the most Horrible dining experience I have had in a WHILE.

We first ordered the steamed dumpling as appetizer. My girlfriend ordered the ginger salad and I ordered the miso soup. Oh boy! Terrible mistake. The ginger salad dressing tasted like it was a couple of days away from expiring and the miso soup, well the miso soup was pretty much water, it was devoid of any sodium and tasted blander that anything I have ever had. I mean the low quality of the dish was actually remarkable. The dumpling were unbelievably mushy, like you could clearly tell it had been overcooked for WAY too long.

However, we decided to go ahead and give the fried dumpling a try thinking it was going to get better. It WAS NOT! It was still mushy and to be honest, I think it takes a lot to make fried food taste mushy.

Then we went ahead and ordered our meal! I am a huge fan of duck, it is probably my second favorite protein ever so I decided to order their duck (Which by the way was one of their most expensive meal). My girlfriend ordered the Bento Box with teriyaki chicken and the peanut avocado and oh my god people! When I tell you the disappointment!

I have had duck in all type of forms, baked, fried, pan seared, barbecue but when I tell you that the duck they serve me was so completely disgusting, I am not joking. The duck was so severely over fried, and I mean so severely over-fried that it had absolutely no meat on it. It was literally just over-greased duck skin, served on raw iceberg salad and white rice( one of their most expensive meal). When I pointed out to the server that my duck was completely subpar and poorly cooked, this is the answer I got " Well at least now you know you don't like it" I was shocked. To her credit she was a new server and probably did not know any better but still. When I asked if this is how the duck was usually cooked she said yeah, right there I was double shocked!

My girlfriend Bento box was no better either. The chicken was so freaking overcooked it tasted grainy. Literally grainy. Like how? The portion size were not enough to make a cat or even a squirrel feel full.

And then there is the wait time! We waited for over 1 hour before out food came out.

The overall experience was really unbelievably poor. I mean I am surprised about some of the reviews I saw on here because I wish I had that type of dining experience.

To conclude, This place is not worth it! I saw someone say they had the best sushi in Bangor! They do not! If you are mindful of time, do...