China Inn — Restaurant in Castle Hills

So … I gave them extra points because the wait staff was friendly. Being treated with courtesy matters.

But the food really left something to be desired and so did the service.

The texture on the chicken corn soup appetizer was really slimy, as if they tried to thicken it with cornstarch. It looked unappealing and didn’t taste super great.

I got the chicken with garlic sauce with lo mein, and it was listed as spicy and it wasn’t very spicy at all and also just mostly bland. The sauce just … was there. The cheese rangoons were a little light on the cheese. And they had fried noodles they served to the table that were really stale with no indication that they would ever make them to order. Watching then serve other tables, the noodles just sat out on the counter until they had people to seat. Everyone else in my party got fried rice, and then the rice appeared to be steamed with soy sauce mixed in. That’s not fried rice.

As for the service … granted, we had someone join our party late, so I understand that this threw a wrinkle in their plans, but we had to track down a waiter to get a menu, and then we had to track them down to pay that person’s bill after they finished eating at the end. Just kinda left us alone after a while. They got our drink orders wrong, one person asked for water with lemon, another asked for water with light ice, and they gave all four of us lemon and the typical amount of ice to the person who requested water with light ice. And then one person requested cheese rangoons instead of an egg roll - they got the egg roll, and then reminded them they asked for rangoons, 10 minutes later the waiter came back and had to be reminded again that a member of our party didn’t get rangoons, and then maybe five minutes later she finally got them.

So .. one or two of these things happen, it’s a mistake, things happen, wait staffs are human, restaurants are busy. But for all of this to be an issue is super disappointing … most of the experience was mediocre to sub par. I won’t be back.

And while I’ll stick with two stars for my rating because of the friendly staff, it clearly feels like they’re trying to pull one over on you by taking shortcuts with the food. Many of the issues I listed with the food were subjective, but steamed rice masquerading as fried rice is...

Oh my God just go here! Their orange chicken was like to die for, and their rice was perfectly puffy and so good I wound up eating nearly all of that even leftover. Usually I hate rice of all kinds especially after it’s in the fridge and goes hard. Not theirs! Back to the chicken, what can I say? Not a ton of breading so you actually get a big portion of MEAT, and while I did order Rangoon and they gave me egg roll instead, my plate also came with a soup. I had the one with tofu and mushroom - hot and sour I think? It wasn’t too spicy and even the tofu was palatable - again, I have a texture thing where food goes so normally don’t eat tofu at all, in any form. The egg roll was amazingly non greasy so I can only imagine what Rangoon would be like - cops next to me got and order of it and it looked delicious.

The best places I’ve had Chinese all over the country often come at the expense of a language barrier; here the staff and I were able to understand one another well, and I noticed their communication between one another and their customers makes for a very efficient yet enjoyable, not rushed or rude, lunch. I got there at about 1230 and they were paaaaacked, no empty seat. Told me about a fifteen minute wait, probably sat me in half that. And once I knew what I was ordering, soup came fast and within probably ten minutes or less my plate was there.

Pricing was on point for what it cost to eat fantastic lunch and it seemed like there were a lot of regulars loyal to the place. I will...

Another Yelp gem! Our family was craving traditional Chinese food. Most of the places I was finding in the area were mainly Americanized Chinese food. Even this place had mainly general tsos chicken and the such in their pictures but I saw the high reviews and their menu had a different section for chefs speciality items. Those items looked more traditional even though the reviews didn’t reflect a lot of people necessarily ordering it, was worth a shot.

Upon getting seated, we noticed that yes their menu was heavily pushing the Americanized options there was a whole page dedicated to traditional options. They start your table off with fried wonton strips, like the ones you put on top of soups. My kids love this!

We ordered 4 entrees the eggplant, the beef and bok choy, the peppery pork chops, and the black pepper shrimp.

My favorite was the black pepper shrimp, they use big shrimps here and it’s not overly salty. The beef and bok Choy was loaded with beef, the eggplant stayed crispy, not mushy, and pork chops were extra crispy. Each plate was huge, and plenty for our family of 6 with leftovers.

The meal ended with complimentary red bean sesame balls, and this was the best part of the meal! My kids ate them all up.

The service was super attentive, they were constantly refilling drinks and fulfilling any requests. Truly a...