Chef Lee's Peking Restaurant — Restaurant in Columbus

The restaurant was beautiful with distinctly 90’s LA Chinese Takeout vibes. There are also a few fantastic water features. However, that is where the compliments end. For our meal we ate Shrimp toast, crab Rangoon, chicken egg foo young, Kang pao shrimp, and Mongolian beef. I have lived in Washington state for the last six years which is densely populated with Koreans, Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese people. I also love Chinese takeout food, because who doesn’t!

The shrimp toast had a great amount of shrimp but was served messy, and without any flavor. It also appeared to have been fried twice. The color was dark brown and was saturated in oil as if it was previously cooked and then thrown back in the fryer to re heat it. We then tried the crab rangoon. The inside was full of cream cheese of subpar quality at best with imitation crab sprinkled in as an after thought. There was no real crab in sight. The fried wanton wrapper was also soft and floppy. Typically with both of these appetizers you would typically serve a sauce, non was provided so we requested sweet and sour which was served cold right out of the fridge.

For our entrees we started with the Mongolian beef which was recommended to us by the chef. It was by far the most edible thing on the menu, while still remaining rather tasteless. The beef was tender enough. However, the sauce was not thick enough to stay on top of the fried rice noodles. It also only provided a sweet flavor. There was non of the well developed flavors that come from making homemade Chinese food, this leaves me feeling like the sauce was out of a can. As we progress to the second entrée we are even more disappointed.

The Kung Pau chicken, while served with red chilies was absolutely tasteless and had no spiciness at all. It could have been watered down garlic shrimp. We where also never asked what spicy level we would like. Anyone who has ever had Chinese takeout would know this is standard procedure. The quality of the shrimp where ok, the veggies where unevenly cooked, and there weee some veggies that where to ambiguous in both texture and shape to even tell what they where.

The last entree we selected was egg foo young. This is one of our all time favorite items to eat from Chinese takeout restaurants. Typically it is a well cooked egg patty, browned to perfection containing a protein and veggies. It is then served with a side of well seasoned brown gravy. What was got was not that. The plate came out looking like a giant plate full of light brown paste with sloppy mystery chunks. After digging through the paste, which still contained chunks of flour/starch, we got to a severely undercooked egg with what felt like last weeks veggies.

While we paid for our entire meal, and left a descent tip. The service was spotty and inconsistent at best. The only reason for leaving a 20% tip is to ensure the staff still receive at least a living wage at least for working our table.

At the end of the meal we only had a few bites of each meal and ate the majority of our Mongolian beef as we where very hungry. While there are not many options in Columbus for Chinese takeout I certainly wouldn’t recommend this one. It is not likely food the staff would even serve to their...

I ate at Chef Lee's for the first time on May 30th 2018 with my husband and children. Seeing a lot of reviews, a high rating and then the beautiful outside and inside atmosphere I was excited to try the food. The prices were only slightly higher than what I'm used to paying in a sit-down restaurant and the service was excellent. Unfortunately, we found the food bland or overly sweet with the fried appetizers having a heavy grease taste.

More detail for my fellow read-every-review people and the owner:

We felt that the egg rolls were large and fried well but tasted bland and were greasier than we're used to; the pot stickers tasted of grease and the dipping sauce tasted only of soy, not the pot sticker sauce we know and love; the won tons in the soup were very large and there were plenty of them but there was little filling and the broth was very, very bland; sweet and sour pork had nice chunks of pork that weren't overly battered but the sauce was almost too sweet to eat (my kids have never said this before); the lemon chicken came as a whole breast that is battered, fried and then sliced which looked great and the chicken was moist but the sauce was overly sweet without lemon flavor; the orange chicken had chicken in small pieces fried so hard we had trouble chewing it and the sauce was just sweet without any orange flavor; the kung pao shrimp looked great and had a generous amount of shrimp but had a bland sauce without any heat; lastly the mongolian beef was very tender but the sauce was again way too sweet. All of the meat was of great quality and the vegetables were fresh.

I rarely leave a negative review. We don't consider ourselves to be picky eaters. We have enjoyed Chinese food all over the US and have tried 5 other Chinese restaurants in the area to date and have never been disappointed like this. I feel this must be out of the norm for Chef Lee's or they wouldn't be so successful. That said, we weren't happy with any of the food and that is out of the norm as well. Usually if one menu item is disappointing the others are fine and enjoyable. According to my experience and other one star reviews something is going occasionally but very wrong in the kitchen or the food is hit/miss and we had the bad luck of spending a lot of money there on such a night.

Sorry Chef Lee, I really, really wanted to...

The vibe was amazing. A truly beautiful restaurant. It felt a bit strange that the employees stood near our table the entire time we were there, but never offered to refill our drinks. We had an issue with our food but the chef came out and was very pleasant about rectifying the problem and was very friendly. I wish all the staff was just as friendly. The food was fresh and I'm assuming closer to authentic Chinese food than what I've ever had before. My favorite part about this gem was the decor and the crab Rangoon. Very beautiful aesthetic and delicious appetizer. The waitress, who barely waited our table, checked the tip and compared it to our bill which had to be adjusted due to the issue we had with our meal... When bringing out our food, she originally gave me an adult plate and took it back and gave me a child's plate... I'm assuming because I'm plus sized... but that's just an assumption being that I was clearly an adult. We came in clearly as a family... Adult male. Adult female. A pre-teen. 2 small children. She asked us three times if it would be on the same ticket... like, why wouldn't it be on the same ticket ma'am?? Clearly we are a family and how many families come in with small children and split a tab?! Because of the issue with our meal and very minimum service, my husband didn't think we should have left a tip... But I Felt the stereotypes being thrown out so I chose to leave one anyway. I love tipping because when I was in college, I lived off tips, unfortunately, I also believe good tips are earned, not given... Had it gone to the chef, I would have left my normal $20 or better but the vibe I got from the waitress and her lack of personal skills left me feeling very uneasy.. and I didn't feel like our table was important.. As much as I loved the chef and the restaurant itself, I don't think I'll return.

This 4 stars is mainly because of the chef, the ambiance, and some of the food... Honestly had it not been for the chef himself, it would have been 3 stars.

So to the chef, thank you so much for your kindness. I'm not sure if you're the owner or not but your warmness and kindness to me and my family, despite the color of our skin was very much...