Hong Kong 97 — Restaurant in Gladstone

This used to be my favorite Chinese restaurant. I would take friends from out of town and it would always be the first place I would recommend to anyone looking to a place to eat. The food was great, the staff were friendly, welcoming and very accommodating, especially to someone with PTSD and the service dog that often plays a major roll in it's treatment.

That is... Until the new owners took over a few years ago. Ever since then it has been nothing but trouble... Poor service, bad attitudes, issues with orders, multiple corrections per order and sometimes corrections to those corrections are still needed, on top of the long wait time(45+ min) after ordering.

We try and be open minded about our issues, people have bad days, something went wrong in the kitchen ECT... So we try the place out every year or two to see if the last time was just a fluke. Our last visit will the very last one. My group of friends was out shopping on mass transit and decided to hit this place for lunch. I had my service dog with me, but haven't had an issue bringing him somewhere in ages, so thought nothing of it. I usually explain that he is a service animal for my PTSD and that's the end of that. we walked in and we're immediately told that we needed to leave because of my dog. I explained to the lady that he was,in fact, a service animal and that he wouldn't be an issue, but was told that they don't care and we needed to leave it the police would be called. Not wanting to deal with the police and exacerbate my PTSD we decided to leave and go somewhere more welcoming . Obviously we won't be recommending this place anymore and have already filed a complaint...

We had Hot and Sour soup, Gen Tso's chicken, Orange Chicken and Mandarin Beef, along with appetizers of CharSiu pork, crab puffs, breaded shrimp and egg rolls.

Everything was tasty, and lots of it. The Mandarin Beef was the best, tender and great taste and also -- it was not breaded. The shrimp dish, orange chicken and Gen Tso's chicken were all breaded, and although it was done well (not overly thick and cooked properly), the breading makes it all look the same, the sauce is just outside the breading. The CharSiu pork appetizer was tasty, but a little dry, so average. The egg roll was delicious, to die for. The crab puffs were gone fast, it is like a big won tun with a crab-flavored/cream-cheese mixture inside.

I asked the waitress for Singapore Noodles (a Hong Kong favorite t hat is not on the menu).. They can make Singapore Noodles, but you must call a day or two before because they need time to have all the ingredients. I will order that next time.

There is an adjoining bar, and you can eat in the bar if you wish. The bar has 6 video-poker machines, and they were all occupied.

Total bill was $49 for the four of us, that included appetizers and we took gobs...

Upon arriving we were a little skeptical, but we needed to kill some time and the reviews were decent so we decided to give it a shot.

It was pretty dead in side, but we went around 2:30pm. So it was expected. There was one waitress and she was friendly and bubbly. Brought us menus and promptly brought water after (with no straws, extra points there).

We order the lunch create your own. It was around 7.50 to 8 bucks for the lunch specials! So affordable. We also got so much food. Soup, a side, a entree and rice. We both only ate our plates and had left overs. Good bang for your buck.

The food was also really tasty. I got pork fried rice with orange chicken and crispy shrimp. My partner got general tsao's chicken. I like his more than mine and he like mine more. He also got white rice and an spring roll. He said the spring roll wasn't great.

However this place was beyond our expectations. Service great, food great, price great. Location a little sketchy, but I wouldn't let that bother you. Their dinner prices looked affordable as well.

Would recommend and...