New Garden Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Garden City

Chinese food will forever have a spot in my heart. As a kid who grew up in the restaurant industry, Chinese food is food is ingrained into my being. It's hard for me not to be so harsh on other Chinese restaurants but when you grew up on top tier Chinese cooking, it's hard not to be a harsh critic. I came to New Garden today for lunch. I was craving chow mein and I was determined to have some. This isn't my first visit and the last visit was "ok". After reading some new reviews, I decided to give it another shot. The restaurant is pretty plain and to the point, it's your basic Chinese restaurant. It's not overly decorative like other establishments in town. The server that served me today was nice. There was a slight language barrier but we made it work. Today I ordered the L6 today which is Mandarin Chicken and fried rice with a side of chow mein. The fried rice was good. You can taste a hint of char in the rice from the wok. It was flavorful and fluffy. I like when rice is tacky and clumps together and this fried rice did. There was good chunks of char su and green onion. Topped with a little sweet and sour sour it makes such a sweet and savory bite. The side of chow mein was good! It was topped with fresh celery and bean sprouts. It also came with a lot of sauce for the crunchy noodles to soak up. That's my favorite part! The chow mein was lacking flavor so I did add some salt and soy sauce to brighten it up. What failed me was the Mandarin chicken. The star of the meal. I'm familiar to the dark meat of the chicken, battered and fried golden. I'm used to the chicken being tender and savory with light crispy batter on the outside. The chicken that was served today was neither. The chicken was so hard. The texture of the chicken was awful and it was unbearable to chew. You can't even cut the chicken with a fork. The batter on the chicken is hard to explain. It was far from light and crispy. It honestly reminded me of kettle potatoe chips. It was thick and too hard. I had a couple pieces and couldn't finish. The meal wasn't completely disappointing. It had good aspects to it. But after trying this place for the second time, I probably...

First of all this is a Taiwanese restaurant not a traditional Chinese restaurant. Some of the meals might be a little different from traditional Chinese food. My spicy Kung Pao Shimp Delight was delicious and the vegetables complemented the spicy shrimp blend well. There wasn't a lot of shrimp but if you understand how expensive it can be and after everything covid did to businesses, it's totally understandable to me, and I didn't mind. My only "complaint" would be that my dish had too many nuts in it. But I also know people have their preferences, when I make a traditional meal, I sometimes forget that not everyone enjoys my preferences.

The second dish was A General Tao Chicken that was very delicious, better than other Chinese restaurants I had around town.

The Noodles had a vegetarian broth in it that was very good and tasty. Could use a little seasoning.

The atmosphere was very traditional and even the music was traditional power ballads in their native tongue.

The server was very friendly, kind, and we talked about kids and family since my new born was with us. She made us laugh a few times.

Don't let one bad experience ruin experimenting with new dishes. Being cultured has its ups and downs. I would come here again just try another dish. I will always support small businesses over...

AWFUL food! I ordered Mongolian beef and my wife ordered Kung Pao chicken. I’ve ordered Mongolian beef from a bunch of different places and the Mongolian beef from this place did not taste anything like Mongolian beef. I don’t know how to describe it. It was just bad. You know that tastey Chinese food smell you get when you bring home takeout? Yeah, this stuff did not smell like that. Not sure how to describe the smell but it wasn’t pleasant. I’m not a picky person and I’ve never left a review before. The only reason I’m leaving this is because they refused to give me my money back. I called them 10 mins after receiving food but no one answered because they were already closed. I called the next day and explained politely that we didn’t like the food and asked if we could have a refund. They refused to give me a refund. They says the only way they would was if I came by the restaurant and dropped off the old food. Well, the food smelled terrible so the first thing I did was take it to the dumpster. It never occurred to me to hold onto the food for a refund. Do yourself a favor and avoid...