Chin's Gourmet — Restaurant in Escondido

Food: 5* Service: 4* Ambiance: 4*

Enjoyed a dinner here after Shen Yun at the Escondido Arts complex. My family and I enjoyed Honey Walnut Shrimp (5), Beef with broccoli (5), Seafood crispy noodles (5), Soft Noodle Chow Mein (5), Schezwan Shrimp, (5), and House special fried rice (5). This Chinese-American restaurant, which apparently has 3 locations, was actually a very pleasant surprise.

The honey shrimp were delicious, lightly sweet, plump, amply portioned, and very tasty. The beef with broccoli was very good with crisp tender broccoli and good pieces of beef in a dark soy sauce based sauce. The seafood crispy noodles was fantastic, full of different types of seafood (scallops, shrimp, fish fillet, and calamari) in a light but tasty sauce served over wok seared crispy noodles. Over time, the noodles soften as they soak up the gravy to a great texture, crispy bits and chewy bits. Very satisfying.

My dad ordered the chow mein, as he loves veggies, and it was very good. The noodles with kissed with the breath of the wok, as they should be, and plenty of lightly sautéed vegetables. The Schezwan shrimp were in a deeply dark sauce with a little spice, but very little. It was mostly white pepper. Lots of water chestnuts added a good texture to the dish. Lastly, the house special fried rice was great. Lightly smokey from the wok with chicken, beef, and shrimp. Excellent all around.

The service was a little slow and we had to ask a few times for things as they were busy. But otherwise, the staff were friendly, helpful, and relatively attentive. This is a great spot to have some excellent Chinese-American fare which is centrally and conveniently located. Next time I am in the area for any of their locations, I will make sure to stop by and...

The food is really good here. We were regulars at a time lunch is very affordable and you get a good amount of food! There used to be a server (a woman) she was the sweetest, but were unsure if she doesn't work there anymore or might have retired. So now there is always a male server and he is not friendly, we noticed he was always more attentive to certain customers. So we dont go there as often as we did. We dont like how he treats us, being people of color, we feel uncomfortable! He never came to refill our drinks and he refilled others, so we knew we were not leaving a tip. Also we noticed he boxed customers dining in leftovers for them, but wen he asked us if we wanted a box he just left the box there and left! It's no biggy for us but since he boxed all the others peoples food which were all caucasian we felt like we were definitely being treated differently. He finally brought the check once he saw I was done signing he came right away and opened the small signing folder and said " is something wrong" we said "no". He looked at us and left confused why we left no tip! We were so annoyed we said who does that who opens the booklet to see if we left a tip right away. We still go cause the food is really good. But we just ignore acts like that. That server just runs it hes always there in the morning but other han that the other servers are very friendly and attentive. Just sharing...

The food was great. My only problem is that after I paid, i did not leave a tip because my daughter was to tip cash. The waitress stopped me as I'm walking out and asked me what the total was after I had already written it in. Explained that it was the total of the bill because my daughter had left a cash tip. The waitress asked me to wait while she went to look on the table for the tip. She immediately came back and stated that my daughter had not tipped. I asked her to wait while I ran outside to get the tip off of my daughter. As I was walking to my car, the waitress came outside to wait for me to return back to give her the tip. As I closer to the car, my daughter comes waking towards me on her way to go pay the tip and asks me why the waitress is waiting at the door. I explained to my daughter that she was waiting for me to bring her the tip. I daughter turns and walks back to the car and states that a tip is a thank you, and not to be demanded, and she refuses to give a tip to someone that asks for one. We will...