China Garden — Restaurant in Citrus Park

If I could leave less than 0 I would, this was by an impressive margin the worst experience I’ve ever had in an eating establishment. My girlfriend and I went to get lunch/dinner and decided to come as it’s been her favorite Chinese restaurant all of her life. We were greeted in a very rude manner by the girl behind the counter, but didn’t think too much of it as she is currently a food service worker and I was previously for years and we both know everyone has bad days. We waited in my car for the 15 minute wait that they quoted us which was accurate and we picked up our food, again without a smile or a thank you and the total came to almost $50.

When we came home we began to eat our food, I got the beef with garlic sauce and two egg rolls, she got shrimp lo mein, shrimp fried rice, and fried shrimp with a side of shrimp fried rice. My food was very hot, temperature wise but very bland and unseasoned but I still ate it since I’m not one to complain, and I also had a few bites of the shrimp lo mein as well, unassuming. On the other hand. Her food was not only unseasoned and bland as well, but lukewarm at best. The kicker though, is that she ate one of the fried shrimps that she ordered and immediately spit it into a napkin saying it tasted bad like cleaner and gave her a coating all in her mouth. I smelled the shrimp after this and it REEKED of ammonia, and was obviously spoiled. With this revelation, all of her food becomes inedible. With one spoiled shrimp, the rest are to be assumed spoiled as well and disposed of.

I then called the restaurant to ask about a refund for the inedible food. I didn’t even want a refund for the food I ate since I ate it. I told them the problem, expecting an apology or an attempt to remedy the problem but was only met with argumentativeness and what felt like an accusation of trying to scam them. After a brief back and forth I was (rudely) told to bring the food in as they “needed to see the food”. Whatever, not a big deal I’ll just bring it in for a refund.

I arrive at the restaurant and am met by the same rude lack of greeting and the food snatched from my hands, and they immediately started digging through the food saying it was perfectly fine, again making it seem like I’m lying. My girlfriend was with me for this occasion, and another older lady comes out to argue this topic with me too, asking me if we’d ever been here before and I respond yes, my girlfriend has been a regular customer for over 20 years. She responds saying “if she’d been here before she’d know what the food tastes like” and “maybe she was just feeling unwell before she ate the food”. I found this incredibly insulting and unprofessional and I demanded a refund and was again met with argument and disrespect. They told me they’d refund me $20, which did not cover the full amount of her food. I asked them to refund the full amount of the items that she ordered, insisting that I do NOT want a refund for my food as I ate it all, only hers. They begrudgingly took another $5 Bill out of the till and THREW it on the counter as they couldn’t be bothered to put it in my extended hand. They CONTINUED their argument that we were making it up. Any half functioning establishment would have, upon discovering they’d served gone-off food, apologized and offered a refund or replacement.

I’ve never been so thoroughly disrespected by anyone in the service industry in my entire life. This is a perfect example of an establishment that has been around far too long and needs to close their doors as they are no longer able to provide a quality service to their consumers. They are completely unable to accept that mistakes happen and sometimes things go wrong. Instead of having humility and owning their mistakes and doing right by the customer they instead argue, deflect the wrong done on the customer and assume no responsibility for a fault which most definitely can and has caused consumers to die by consuming rancid seafood. I urge anyone who reads this review to please do not provide this establishment any of your money...

Yesterday, my family and I ordered one simple meal that was less than $50. We chose (delivery) on the online option, as opposed to (pick up). One hour later, we decide to call and ask about the status of the delivery. They claimed “you chose pick up”. We said “no, we chose delivery”. They lady that answered the phone started yelling and saying “what do you want us to do? I take your food to you now”. We said no, because we know that people are disgusting and might want to spit in our food. We didn’t trust them. So we asked for a refund. They hung up the phone, multiple times (when we had tried calling back). They threatened to call the cops, which is fine, because we weren’t in the wrong. They took a picture of the receipt and sent it via text message, and said “what do you have to say now”. Very bizarre, rude, and extremely unprofessional. Not only that, but they apparently “deliver” through a bootleg version of Uber Eats, and the service is called “Tap Thru”. They directed us to Tap Thru, and Tap Thru was just as rude if not worse. Tap Thru sounds like it was the Chinese food employees sitting in a parking lot, and they just “made up” this company- that doesn’t really exist. Never ordering from this place again. They still haven’t reimbursed our money. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE AND THEY SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN!!!!! Don’t order from them. Save your money, sanity, and...

We've been regular customers of this restaurant for a while. It was average at best, but consistently average. Sometimes, you just want OK Chinese takeout, you know?

This time, however, spurned me to write a review. We ordered 3 items - large quantities as we usually take this stuff for leftovers.

Szechuan Chicken General Tso's Chicken Beef Lo Mein

First off, I asked for the Szechuan Chicken to be hot. It is supposed to be made with a red chili pepper paste. We received a box of sauteed onions, in oil, with crushed red pepper flakes. This was so disgusting that I threw it away. I wouldn't even give this to my dogs.

Second, the General Tso's Chicken was yellow. There was oil mixed in with the sauce, which overpowered it, and the chicken was not coated with the sauce as a result. This was somewhat edible, but also frankly gross.

Finally, the Beef Lo Mein. You'd think this would be hard to screw up. No, not this time. This time it was drenched in salt to the degree that it was ALL I tasted.

I'm sitting here drinking a Soylent now after having binned $29 in dinner food. I'm disgusted. I won't be returning as a customer. I don't know if they are under new ownership or it was just an off night, but up until today these guys were a consistent 3/5. We've ordered from here for years. Tonight was so bad...