Gourmet Garden — Restaurant in Canton

Wanted some American Chinese food takeout for a quick pick me up from a pretty stressful day. We stopped by Gourmet Garden to try it out and ordered some classics.

It’s located in the Village Shoppes in Canton, super cute area. They’ve got a few restaurants, an Urgent Care, spas, shopping like Marshall’s and the LOFT, gyms, grocery stores, flower shop, toy store, nails and much more. Love the convenience!

We got: HOT AND SOUR SOUP I absolutely love hot and sour soup, but this was super bland. I was pretty disappointed by how it lacked a slightly spicy component and sour component. I just wish there was more flavor and spices in it. If it had been labeled as special egg drop soup I think that would be more appropriate. Would not get again.

PU PU PLATTER An assortment of favorites, the best way to have a little of everything in my opinion. The pu pu platter came with a deep fried egg roll, fried chicken wings, crispy chicken fingers, beef teriyaki sticks, deep fried shrimp, and boneless spare ribs. The egg roll was delicious, perfectly crispy with some tasty minced pork, carrots and cabbage. The chicken wings were golden and crispy when you bit into them, but man was that meat juicy and well brined. Just delicious. The chicken fingers had the perfect crunch when you bit into them, but that batter was light and you could tell they were fried in new fryer oil. Just perfect. The chicken was moist with just enough salt. So tasty. Beef teriyaki was just classic, saucy, well flavored and tender meat on a stick. Doesn’t get any better than that! Deep fried shrimp was tasty, the batter was spot on and the meat was pretty tender. The sweet dipping sauce went perfectly to complement all the fried goods. Boneless spare ribs were sooo yummy I always put them on a spoonful of pork fried rice. I’m telling you that’s the way to do it! So much flavor and perfect ratio of meat in that bite! Loved their pu pu platter.

CHICKEN FINGERS Gave these babies their own spotlight picture because these were some of the best chicken fingers I’ve had this year! I love a good crispy chicken finger, but I noticed that most of the time the batter will be deliciously crispy and have the crunch I want, but the meat was dry and unsalted. This was not the case the meat was moist and lightly salted and the dipping sauce in your mouth was just amazing.

PORK FRIED RICE I’ve always thought of pork fried rice as one of the GOATs in American Chinese food. You have everything you could want on rice, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, BBQ pork, scrambled eggs, onions, bean sprouts, and chives. Their pork fried rice was well cooked and seasoned. Every bite was just delicious and so nostalgic.

It was pretty busy when we arrived to pick up our takeout, but everyone was having a good time all around us. There’s Chinese food, Japanese food with sashimi and sushi, and hibachi for an interactive dining affair here. Quite an all inclusive restaurant, very impressive. The staff were really friendly and quick to attend to us. Would definitely come back...

Absolutely FLAWLESS and DELICIOUS!

I wanted to sit down and eat in a nice place, and I had only eaten from Gourmet Garden once before (a friend had ordered us take-out). It was delicious that time, too.

After eating in, I felt a review was necessary. We went in on a Monday evening around 6:30pm (7/16/24), so not too busy. There were other patrons, and some orders on the shelfs for pickup.

We were greeted and seated as soon as the hostess finished with the customer ahead of us.

I had just enough time to inspect the table, silverware, and placemat for cleanliness (all was spotless) before our waitress introduced herself and gave us menus. The waitress was awesome, I'm sorry I can't remember your name!

We ordered 2 sodas. She served them to us almost instantly. I immediately spotted the carbonation through the drinking glasses (not something that I see often in my dining experiences 😪).

We started with the crab-rangoons, which were delivered to our table in just minutes. They were cooked to perfection and tasty. In my opinion, they could have had a bit more crab taste, but still yummy.

We ordered the Happy Family (B9), the Crystal Scallops (Sf14), and pork fried rice. I was quite impressed how quickly our order was delivered to our table. I knew something had to be wrong...but I was wrong!

Everything was hot, smelled incredible, and tasted wonderful. We dove in before I started taking pictures (the crab-rangoons weren't so lucky, lol. They got eaten before I thought of taking pictures!).

Some reviewers complained of too much salt. Not in our food (I don't like a lot of salt and almost never add salt to anything).

The duck sauce was superb. When you see me drinking it, you KNOW it's good! The waitress chuckled when she saw me drinking it 😋

Now let me tell ya about their fried rice... As a rule, I dislike fried rice. Mostly because--at least in my experiences--VERY FEW places actually make GOOD fried rice! I could eat their fried rice by the truckload! Hot, steamy, fresh, delicious. Certainly not hard, dry, or bland, like many others!

I was so delighted by my experience at Gourmet Garden that not only did I give our waitress a 30% tip, I thanked my friend who introduced me to Gourmet Gardens, ranted about how great EVERYTHING was for the next hour, and finally, wrote this review the next morning!

I love Gourmet Gardens, and will...

Do not eat at this location in Canton if you have food allergies. We placed our order I made it very clear my daughter is allergic to gluten and sesame. I told the attendant at least 3 times she seemed annoyed that I repeated myself. We drove 40 minutes to this location, we normally go to their Wareham location but it was not as convenient.

The manager Amy was rude to my husband when he went inside to pick up our order.

We arrived home (after driving another 40 min) Only to find the gluten free shrimp fried rice was brown and had no vegetables. The regular vegetable fried rice was white and very oily. The Lo mein had no veggies so the only items cooked correctly were the scallion pancakes.

I called and spoke with the manager Amy who was not helpful as she first lied to me telling me the brown shrimp fried rice was cooked with gluten free tamari sauce. I explained this could not be true we order this and more from the Wareham location all the time I know what it’s supposed to look like.

She called me back five minutes later and asked if I could come back, I said no I’m too far away. She only offered to refund me $20 on an almost $60 meal, of which we could only eat the scallion pancakes.

She apologized and acknowledged the brown rice contains gluten (thank god I didn’t believe her minutes before).

I explained that’s not acceptable and she said well what do you want? I said “I’ll be in the area next week how about you just remake it for me then?” She then said fine but no $20 credit then. I wasn’t worried about the credit, but the fact that she so rudely threw that in made me even more upset. So I told her no we won’t be back forget it. She offered a $30 refund and seemed ok with us never returning.

In the meantime my daughter ate the plain fried white rice as Amy said during the 2nd call that that was definitely gluten free, and contained no sesame oil. Well she was wrong again and my daughter was sick.

So $30 spent on two orders of scallion pancakes, and I then had to start to cook dinner at 9pm.

Lesson learned Gourmet Garden Canton has unpleasant staff and no knowledge of how to safely address allergen contamination.

Btw this is my first ever google review, I’m not a complainer but this treatment...