North Garden Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Goffstown

Moved to NH recently and missed the dim sum restaurants of the big city where I used to live. North Garden was a great discovery with really fresh and tasty dim sum on weekends.

Don’t come here expecting the carts and variety that come from the Boston type restaurants, but ordering by dish ensures fresh and hot food. The quality rivals any dim sum places I’ve been to previously and the variety is more than enough to satisfy the cravings of this picky dim sum consumer!

The hostess/manager is a delight - very friendly and quick to take care of my wife and me. She even let us know proactively when a recent dim sum order was taking a bit long - after assuring us the order was on the way. She noted that since everything is steamed to order, it sometimes took a bit. In the meantime, she made sure our teapot was filled and we weren’t lacking for anything else. The food came out when ready and when it arrived, it was definitely hot! No sitting on steam carts here!

As someone of Chinese descent, I also noticed some pretty authentic dishes on the menu. Can’t wait to come back and try them. Definitely a new “go-to” place for authentic Chinese food - and my wife and I are happy to find this great place, even if it’s an hour drive away from...

Things have definitely gone downhill at this place. This used to be our “go-to” but after moving across town, I don’t get there as often. The food is typically good, but this last time I got the beef and broccoli and it tasted weird - almost soapy. I realized it was because way too much sesame oil was used. I also opted to sub my appetizer of chicken wings with teriyaki for an upcharge… I got ONE piece of teriyaki so what am I paying extra for? I hate that they have appetizers already selected to go with the combo plates and you have to pay to get something different, especially when their combos make no sense. CRAB Rangoon with vegetarian delight? So either they’re not aware that most vegetarians don’t eat crab meat or it’s not even real. Chicken fingers with chip suey… because who doesn’t love getting soggy chicken fingers with their meal? Let us choose our own appetizer with our combo meal! We only chose here because our favorite place, Golden Tao, was closed but we will continue to give our business to Golden Tao because 1) they are consistent 2)they let you choose your own appetizer with their combo meal 3)they don’t up charge you to switch out appetizers and then not even give you the...

We are always on the search for authentic Chinese (especially Sichuan) food. We stopped at North Garden because they offer dim sum, which is usually a good sign.

We stopped in for dinner and got:

“Pan-fried” Peking raviolis Beef with ginger and scallion hotpot.

First, the raviolis came out deep-fried, not pan-fried. Which is fine, but there is a difference and should be reflected on the menu. They were good, but being fully fried, the texture is different from a pan-fried dumpling.

Next, the beef hotpot. It came out in a sizzling bowl. It was a large portion of beef, mushrooms, and vegetables (mostly onion). The flavor was okay. Certainly nothing offensive, and it was good, although a bit oily, but it was lacking an OOMPH. I wish it had more ginger flavor. Or maybe fermented black bean - that would have kicked it up a notch.

There are actually two separate spaces here: 1 is the dining area, and 1 is a bar and lounge. Both spaces can order the full menu. The dining space was clean and casual. The staff working there were very nice and super friendly.

From our experience, it’s a middle-of-the-road Chinese restaurant, a place I’d go again but not a place I’d go out...