Chen Yang Li Restaurant — Restaurant in Bedford

I'm saddened by the fact that I have to write this review because the family of Chen Yang Li restaurants has, overall, been better than most in the area. But of all nights they chose tonight to go severely downhill. It was my brother's birthday and I decided to order from Chen Yang Li's for everyone rather than cook. I spent $250.00 (more than I've ever spent on Chinese) and it was one of my worst Chinese food experiences yet. I don't even know where to begin, but I guess I'll start with the mushy, poorly made, bland, pineapple fried rice and chicken, which is my wife's favorite... usually. It was terrible and quite frankly ended up in the garbage after 3 people tried it and had the same reaction.

Got the PuPu platter for 6 and the boneless spare ribs were tough and dry, the chicken wings were flavorful but a bit on the dry side as well, but definitely edible. The Rangoons were about as average as they come and that's the best thing I can say about them. Teriyaki beef strips were good, but they pummeled us with heavily breaded chicken fingers and we got no skewered chicken and no fried shrimp. I know a lot of places removed them from the standard PuPu platter due to rising food costs, but this is supposed to be an upper eschelon place (definitely upper eschelon prices), so I don't get it. But that's my own fault for not reading the menu better before ordering. Fried shrimp were standard in PuPu platters for decades and I'm guilty of assuming, once again, because this is not a cheap corner Chinese food restaurant I thought their price point would cover this item.

Sesame Chicken was soggy and didn't have much of a sesame flavor at all and was rather one dimensional. One person called it "sugar chicken" because that was all you could taste. I don't believe the sauce or the cooking method involved sesame oil, but rather just a scant dusting of sesame seeds after it's plated.

The General Tsos was a little better but still lacked the texture and crunch I associate with a good Chinese meal. In all fairness, we were told 20-30 minutes and we were 7 minutes late picking up the food, but surely I've had Chinese food that sat as long and didn'tn lose most of us texture .The House Fried Rice and Pork Egg Foo Young were GREAT, but carrots and peas in both did draw negative comments from some in our party. The pork lo me in was lacking flavor, but I used the egg foo young gravy to elevate it. The best dish of the $250 haul was Shrimp Pad Thai, which I could eat over and over. Even with all that, better than average, but with price points a good 20% higher than many other places, it just fell a bit short.

I wouldn't much care if it had been a $50 order for me and the wifey on a Friday night watching Netflix, but the circumstances of inviting 9 people to eat a $250 dollar order for my brother's birthday makes it 20x worse!

Not sure if I'll give it another try, but I probably will at some point, and I'll edit this review at that time. I'm sorry if this review seems harsh, but I work hard for my money and do expect a certain quality when I pay up at a well...

My friend and I have been ordering from here for NYE for several years and never have any issue . Last night was a complete meltdown of epic proportion. We submitted our order with plenty of lead time on Thurs for 6pm pickup. When we arrived at 6, we were told it will be 30min. No biggie. When we returned 30min later, we were again told it will be another 30 min so we paid hoping that it would help to secure our order. This continued on for 2 1/2 hr in which we would be told “it will be 30min” or “oh I saw your order on the line so it might be prepared next”. We finally got our food at 8:32pm!

I totally get that NYE is a busy day but transparency is key to customer service. It wouldn’t hurt if they have announced earlier on their website that they are behind by 2 hrs to give customers an option to decide if they want to wait or cancel their orders. I would have happily waited at home and come back 2 hrs later instead of waiting in the rain outside (the inside lobby was already crowded with a sea of miserable folks who are praying to see their family again before the Times Square ball drops). I feel bad for those customers who strolled in at 8pm thinking that they are going to pick up their non-existent food.

I don’t know if this meltdown was due to short staff or unprecedented demand but hope they will be able to implement some measures next year to prevent this from happening again (perhaps stop taking orders after a certain point?). Some people that I waited with outside said they have just only phoned in their orders that morning when I was under the impression that you need to order 24 hrs in advance?

To the chefs’ credit, our food was delicious despite the long wait and we didn’t have anything missing from the order. Appreciate all the kitchen and wait staff for working hard but hope management can truly avoid this...

I used to like this place until the day I got to the bottom of the complimentary pickled vegetables (which they automatically bring to the table) and I nearly ate a white, smoothed out wad of already-been-chewed gum that was buried in the bottom. I thought it was a water chestnut. If I didn’t notice the texture was off when I pierced it with my fork, I would have put it in my mouth! By the time I found it, I had already eaten almost the whole thing! I am the only one in my family that likes the dish so I took the whole small plate as soon as it was served and no one else at my table touched it l. It never left my sight so it was either put there by someone in their kitchen, or a previous patron put their gum in their uneaten serving and the restaurant later served it to me. Either way... gross! Since I ordered from there often and really liked their food, I was willing to help them save face, and I discreetly told the waitress. The manager later came over and tried to claim someone in my party put it there. She was rude and unprofessional. When I kindly explained why it was not possible, she had the audacity to argue with me about it. She then asks “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Now I’m mad. I told her, “You’re the manager of the restaurant. You tell me!” She offers me a $20 gift card to use... AT MY NEXT VISIT!... AS IF I WAS COMING BACK! Our order had not yet come out so if my family wasn’t already starving and I knew it wouldn’t be another 2 hours before we could eat if we went elsewhere, I would have packed up and walked out right then. So we stayed, but I insisted she apply the gift card that day. She was resistant, but relented. We apprehensively had our LAST meal there that night. I will...