Dumplings N More — Restaurant in Escondido

We found this relatively new restaurant on Yelp while looking for a new place to try. 4.8 Stars on 61 reviews... figured it must be a good bet. So off we went on a Holiday Monday afternoon... and found it fairly busy even though it was just after Lunch. That to us was a good sign. Wife ordered "Chicken with Broccoli"... and I ordered "Braised Beef noodle soup". My wife's entree was brough to the table in a normal amount of time... but mine was not brought to the table until over 15 minutes later. Her's made no mention of garlic on the menu... it smelled of garlic... but it smelled delicious. The Broccoli was crisp and bright green. It had so much garlic on it that she wasn't able to finish it and we didn't even take any home in spite of only about half of it being eaten.

The air conditioning was adjusted so low that the room was freezing to us... and the food was quickly cooled. After more that 15 minutes and my wife had finished her entree.... mine was finally delivered.

The broth had an excellent flavor. There was a generous amount of noodles. Mixed in were a few pieces of baby Boc Choi... Cilantro... and a some green onion tops. The beef had been in the broth long enough that it had hardly any flavor. The Beef was not dry from over cooking... it just was without much flavor. I ate for about 5 minutes... and then called the waitress to our table and told her I had ordered a diet coke. She apologized for the other waitress not bringing it and brought me a can of Diet Coke. No glass... no ice. I opened it and started drinking it and then called her again to the table and asked for a glass of ice. She pleasantly brought me one.

It was a terribly disappointing experience. It was uncomfortably cold through out the meal... the food was disappointing... and the service while friendly ... was lacking. I apologize for the quality of the photos. With the huge delay in getting my food... I forgot to take my customary "foody" shot.... but I took one about 2/3 of the way through my soup.... to show the excessive garlic on my wife's plate... and my lackluster bowl of noodle soup, I've read the other reviews... and really don't understand what happened for us.... but it's...

If this is how their food normally is made, this place will not last long.

I ordered vegetarian egg rolls 2/5, they were crispy on the outside, inside was mush. Almost like it was vegemite with carrot strips. Spicy stir fried chicken 1/5. Nothing in the stir fry was caramelized in the slightest. They should have called it the spicy simmered chicken. The sauce was terrible, basically, ketchup with vinegar, way too many mostly raw jalapeños, and chiles de arbol, with hella onions. Also ordered the shrimp fried rice 1/5. The eggs were scorched, there were vegetables and shrimp, but none of these were caramelized either. (Did you even bother frying this dish at all?) Zero soy sauce, the tiniest hint of sesame oil. Like the cook waved the bottle of sesame oil over the dish after they heated it up to get the essence of sesame(this is sarcasm). I also had the vegetarian fried noodles 2/5. These weren't fried at all either. The dish consisted of a lot of noodles, some egg that wasn't scorched for a change, shredded carrots, some bean sprouts, and an extremely bland liquid that wasn't thick enough to be considered a sauce.

All in all, pretty awful food. This is their A game, presumably, considering the place had a grand opening banner across the front.

I wish I had taken my $60 across the street to China Fun, or saved some cash and went to Panda. Either is a...

We rank this as definitely a "ONE TIME ONLY" restaurant. The BBQ Pork appetizer showed up last and is not BBQ Pork AT ALL in a traditional sense. It was simply a pile of pork with a small amount of some sauce on it that did not taste like a BBQ sauce, nor was this the traditional Chinese BBQ Pork. Definitely 2 thumbs down on that one. The Mongolian Beef was good and had good flavor and a decent sized portion, the BBQ Pork Stir-Fried Noodles has Pork---- but it is not BBQ Pork nor does it have the flavor or even the look of real Chinese BBQ Pork (the on-line menu shows real Chinese BBQ Pork in the picture). The Spicy Crispy Chicken is not what is shown in the picture on the on-line menu, IT DID NOT TASTE SPICY to us, even though it has a "2 hot peppers rating" on the menu, and does not appear to be freshly made but seems like a deep fried FROZEN ITEM (think of store bought frozen Orange Chicken--- but with no orange coating!). The Thai Tea was over-the-top sweet to us, and people may like that, but for us to enjoy it, it needed to be heavily watered down after each sip. Over all, even though the Mongolian Beef was good, it's definitely not worth a second try for us and we could never really recommend it to anyone. The website says "Authentic Chinese Cuisine" ----- but it did not seem like it to us and we feel it is certainly not possible in, of all places...