Fortune Cookie II — Restaurant in Charlotte

I hate writing a bad review but this place needs to up their quality. If you don’t know what good Chinese food should be like, this place is for you. This is Americanized Chinese glop. Heavy sauces and lots of salt to cover mediocre cheap ingredients and the recipes are not true to the dishes. Ordered from a delivery service and with tip it was $60 for two people. They had a decent amount of stars so I figured we’d try it.

The steamed dumplings were pretty good but I think they were packaged. The sauce was very salty.

Hot and Sour soup was missing all of the ingredients that make it taste unique. No wood ear mushrooms, no roast pork, no bamboo shoots, no fresh scallions. Basically, a cheap egg drop soup with vinegar and chili flakes. Egg drop soup BTW was super salty and way too much corn starch.

Ribs were average. Very little glaze like nobody spent any time basting them but a puddle of grease underneath as seen in the photo.

Most disappointing was the Szechuan beef. I attached a picture of what it should look like. It is a simple dish. Beef flash fried with red peppers, hot peppers and scallion in a spicy sauce with peppercorn. PF Changs and Red Bowl makes it correctly.

What I got was whatever vegetables were lying in the bin. Broccoli, snow peas, corn. You name it but no hot peppers or scallions. All Thrown in the deep fryer until mushy with some beef chunks and then covered in some Kind of brown generic corn starch based sauce.

Again, I hate giving you a bad review but this is blatant “use up whatever we’ve got ‘cause they won’t know the difference”. Most of dinners went in the garbage and for the money that’s...

The one star is for the excellent customer service. To be fair I am writing this review after giving this place a second shot, even though I did not enjoy my first order.

Each time, I had the fried chicken wings with shrimp fried rice combo and an order of egg drop soup. The soup was better than the first time I tried it, but the other items were just as bad, if not worse. The rice was bland, which is in contrast to some of the reviews where customers stated the rice was too salty. Maybe the restaurant read the reviews and decided to use zero to no salt going forward. I prefer less salt so I guess they partially got that part right. However, it had a burnt taste, as though the wok hadn't be cleaned in days. The chicken wings were even worse. It had a heavy oily, cornstarch taste with no seasoning in sight.

I don't understand how this place receives the 5 star ratings it does. I know my palate is different because I lived in Atlanta for 20 years prior where the options of amazing food is endless, but come on Charlotte, finding some decent fried rice shouldn't be this difficult. Charlotte is rapidly growing so hopefully some authentic chefs will come along too. I cook 5 days a week and only order out on most weekends, and have basically given up on trying yet another...

This is the ONLY chinese food I will buy in Charlotte and I've never had a bad experience but today I am truly disappointed so I will speak on it. I normally go in and pick up my food but not feeling too good today and looking for delivery. They advertise that they deliver within 5 miles. I live literally 5 miles away. When I call to order and give my address they say "call this number and see if they will deliver to you" I was so shocked that I forgot the number he blurted out to me by the time I hang up. I called back and asked him what place is he directing me to call and it turns out he is telling me to call the other fortune cookie which is further, over 8 miles from my house. I told him this and he says "well hold on" I hung up. I am truly disappointed. If you are not going to deliver within 5 miles then don't advertise it. Being professional and having customer service is everything to me I dont care how good...