Nanjing Bistro — Restaurant in Fairfax

Nanjing Bistro is situated in the Fairfax Center, near Walmart in Fairfax, VA, serving authentic, homemade-style Chinese cuisine. The interior is clean, with white walls and LVP flooring. Service from an auntie was excellent; she was friendly and tried to accommodate us as best as she could. The food was fantastic, and we appreciated that the dishes weren’t overly seasoned, but just right. All dishes were freshly cooked in their kitchen, making it one of the best experiences we've had in terms of authentic Chinese food.

Some dishes we enjoyed and highly recommend: Home Braised Pork Belly: The Sauce was just perfect— not too salty or heavy—and tasted terrific. The pork belly was soft and enjoyable. Nanjing Style Shredded Tofu: The tofu, combined with egg and black fungus, had a pleasant overall texture, and the seasoning was not too heavy. Homemade Small Meatball Casserole Soup: Small meatballs, vermicelli noodles, and cabbage in a hot, clear soup. All ingredients combined well to make a tasty soup. Housemade Triple Delight Dumplings: Well-made savory dumplings with ground meat and veggies, even better with...

Disorganized, terrible service. Waitresses are lazy and rude. I saw a patron has to put the teapot onto the server's desk in order to get it refilled. Clueless front desk person. Missed a dish on my take out once, and then gave my entire order to another person. He had the gulls to ask if I actually ordered?! He finally realized he mixed it up badly...so he ended up screwing over two customers. Slow as hell. When they tell you "20 minutes" I always had to sit on the counter and wait another 5-10 after the 20 minutes. One may be able to overlook these things if the food is actually good, but they are not. I'm Chinese and this is ordinary food we cook in the family, not "restaurant level" food. In fact, I've seen the cook/owner shop at Great Walls Chinese store. Very ordinary dishes, and very few selections. I knew one of the waitresses who worked there and she admitted to me that the menu is very limited. If you enjoy waiting for 2 hours for some basic, over-priced Chinese food, this is your place! I for one will never...

I want to love Nanjing Bistro but it feels like Nanjing is trying too hard by adding Chinese cuisine that is not its forte. Traditional mainland China dishes rein supreme. Yes, can taste the wok hay in wok fried entrees. You won't find any gooey glossy-laden General Tso's, Orange, or Sesame chicken here.

The beef wide rice noodles was ok but the cooking was rushed because many rice noodles were still sticking to each other and revealed white, unflavored/unsauced color when pulled apart. The mala dry pot was not ma (numbing) nor la (spicy) at all despite requesting highest spice level; had to ask for chili sauce {"HAYIAA..."}.

Nanjing's claim to good authentic Chinses food is the Lion head meat ball soup, cold appetizers, stirfied beef and green horn peppers, and various other entrees wok fried pretty well using fresh ingredients. So if you go, do what some other asians do and point to what patrons at other tables order that looks good as the best way to order the best menu items coming out of...