China Hut — Restaurant in Grants Pass

They say that when a place is empty at lunch time or dinner time… beware! I should have taken this as a warning and walked right out (the strong chemical smell in the restaurant should have been another red flag). Tired after a long drive, I didn’t think anyone could mess up basics like steamed rice and egg foo young. I’m not a picky eater at all but this food was not edible. This is the first time in my life that I’ve thrown out an entire order because it just couldn’t be eaten! The egg foo young looked like frozen deep fried pancakes that had been reheated. They were absolutely tasteless. I might as well have eaten cardboard. There was a brown, gel like pudding that was meant to be the gravy… but it was like adding insult to injury because it tasted as gross as it looked. In addition to the congealed goop, there was an orange mystery sauce that smelled so strongly of vinegar that I threw it right out. Even the soya sauce packets were very low quality (probably chosen because they’re cheap), and tasted nothing like real soya sauce. The rice was well… a brick of overcooked mush that looked like it needed to be cut with a knife. Finally came the fortune cookies… you can’t mess that up, right? Well these fortune cookies must have been made with chalk and water and kept on a back shelf for a couple of years. They were harder than a rock and the paper inside had fused with the cookie. I regret even taking a single bite. While the people working at this restaurant were nice, everything tasted like they had chosen the lowest quality ingredients then asked a bunch of toddlers to put it together. Overall, this is a great place to eat if you want to know what prison food tastes like in third...

I just moved to the area, so I don’t have a solid idea what restaurants exist in Grants Pass. My friend and I were on our way to The Orchid Grill when we overshot the turn. As we came back around the block we decided to try China Hut, because we both have frequent cravings for Chinese, and it had been a while.

This was our mistake.

The place was mostly empty, which isn’t inherently bad, but also didn’t make us feel like it was a popular choice, either.

I ordered sweet and sour pork with pork fried rice and an egg roll, and a pot sticker appetizer. My friend ordered something with egg foo young.

Soup came with our orders, but I have no idea what it was. It was grey, cloudy, and had so many onions. My friend described it as being “surprisingly tasteless”.

The pot stickers were a fifteen to twenty minute wait by themselves, and looked like they’d barely seen the inside of a pan. They also arrived with the rest of the food.

For my part, I found the rice interesting, but not bad. It was definitely pork fried, and the pork had been grilled first, and that grilling was the strongest flavor on the plate. Because my sweet and sour was very mild on any discernible flavor. Not fully sweet, not fully sour, a tiny bit savory in the soy sauce way. But nothing really ... flavorful.

The egg roll was a nightmare. It was the size of two or three combined, heavily BATTERED and fried too long with mushy vegetables inside. Also not great on the flavor front.

I don’t have the money to go out to eat very often, and I regret having spent what little I have on this experience. Especially because it was a $35 bill between us, and we walked away with a warning to others instead of...

The environment was nice, and the staff was helpful and stopped by our table a number of times during my 45-minute visit. Pricing was very fare. The #2 combo meal with chicken chow mein, pork fried rice, and fried prawns with tea and egg flower soup was less than $14 (6/2/25).

Let's talk food!

The portions: were, again, very fare, with the chow mein, four prawns, and fried rice covering a 10in oval plate

The visual: In being honest, it looked a little pale. The fried rice was full of little nuggets of pork and veggies but was under fried if fried at all. The texture felt more like rice with some soy sauce that hit the wok, heated a minute, and plated. With that said, though, it tasted OK. The chow mein was a large pile of fried onions and veggies and a lot of chestnuts. Now I don't mind chestnuts, I like them. But for most people, it would have been a LOT of nuts to chew. Maybe room for a new plate, "Chestnut Chew Mein". The disappointing part of this whole plate was the ready-made deep fried chow mein noodles that the onions, veggies, and chestnuts were plated on, TERRIBLE, but once removed from the plate, the rest had a nice fresh smokey wok flavor.

The STAR of the Plate: The PRAWNS! Though overcooked just a touch, the meat tasted rich with wild prawn flavors, and the tempura was crunchy and very satisfying. I WANT MORE..., please

Would I go back..., yeah, for a quick meal and good service. And especially if I had a family to feed on a budget. This could be your spot. It's worth trying. Just don't expect gourmet, and you should...