Sun garden chinese bistro — Restaurant in El Paso

We drove over to El Paso in search of good Chinese food, and had read several posts on Facebook about this place being good. The server(s) were friendly enough but seemed to be frustrated about the length of time our order was taking. (We went at 2pm hoping to avoid this very thing) The egg drop and wonton soups were great, and even the little bowl of fried wonton skins were light, crispy and tasted surprisingly fresh! I enjoyed the flavor of the honey walnut shrimp, but the shrimp weren’t properly cleaned and they leave the tails on, and it’s a dish where the honey/mayo sauce is covering it all and makes it difficult/impossible to eat the whole shrimp. The salt and pepper fish was great! The shrimp fried rice tasted horribly scorched, like either they let the rice scorch and just served the most appealing portion, or the wok had excess char around the rim that was mixed in, making it unpleasant to smell or eat. Finally, the beef egg foo yung made it to the table and it was floating in a bowl of the most runny sauce I’ve ever seen, instead of a rich gravy that normally accompanies the dish. The thinly sliced beef was piled on top of a couple of vegetable/egg patties, as if an afterthought, so it was very disappointing… I didn’t make mention of any of this while there because I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with it, but essentially our dogs and chickens had some very expensive leftovers. Not exactly how I pictured a nice $100+ lunch experience, but if they addressed the issues it might be worth a...

The main entrée (spicy basil chicken) was a very generous portion. Most of the dish was quite good, but the vegetables were poorly prepped and undercooked. The carrots in particular were hard and woody.

I started the meal with hot and sour soup. There was nothing wrong with it other than tasting a tiny bit diluted.

Where things went wrong were two-fold. The original entrée was meant to be bitter gourd and beef. That's why I came to Sun Garden at all. I was already half through my soup and had eaten 1 of the 2 BBQ Pork buns (more on that in a minute) before the very polite and attentive server came back. She offered another dish with a "new" Chinese vegetable that I had never heard of for a few dollars more, but I opted for the spicy basil chicken instead.

The bao (steamed filled buns) were a nightmare. Definitely not made in house. I ordered two and they had the distinct texture of something frozen, then thawed, then heated in the microwave. Parts of the buns were fine, parts were hard and overcooked and the rest was soggy. The filling was tasty at least, but these were an insult and shouldn't be on the menu if they cannot be made correctly in the Sun...

I came in tonight for dinner at around 6:30 PM for the first time in many years and was excited because of the many good reviews. There was only one other table in the restaurant with people and they were on their way out as we arrived so it was not busy at all. The service from the start was really strange and it kind of felt like we shouldn’t be there like it was an inconvenience. When we ordered food, I asked if my plate could come with fried rice instead of steamed and was told that’s not an option; that it would have to be a separate dish to be ordered entirely. I’ve never heard that at a Chinese restaurant before whether it was a cheap one or a high end one so off bat that was strange. The Thai tea we ordered was really disappointing and we did not even have more than a sip. Considering how expensive this place was (about $50 for 2 people, no appetizers either) I genuinely was disappointed and don’t know how this place has such high reviews. Definitely wouldn’t recommend. There's no tv and no music, just silence, SUCH...