Sampan Inn — Restaurant in Haverford Township

This place used to be one of the best Chinese-American restaurants in Delaware county. Now, I would say it's only about on par with an average city counter restaurant on a good night.

Looking for an option for decent take out on a weeknight when you're ending your day later than expected can be a challenge. My wife suggested Sampan, which seemed like a safe option.

She asked me to order a "big broth noodle bowl" which they corrected me and said it was a "deluxe wonton noodle bowl". It ended up not being what she intended on ordering, but she said it was still acceptable.

Now, to the reason for the 1-star review. My order was the egg drop wonton soup. There wasn't anything too bad about the broth (which admittedly is hard to screw up). I kid you not that the wontons in the soup tasted like bleach mixed with toilet water. I tried eating one and couldn't even swallow the first bite. They had to be old and gone bad at least a day ago. You can read my other reviews posted about other restaurants: I am not known to be a super-picky eater and fairly judge the quality of the food I eat with perspective of the price and quality advertised. Saying that the food I was served was inedible is a terrible understatement and a disgrace for a restaurant that built up a reputation as Sampan has.

I will not be ordering food from here and think everyone reading this review deserves to know how far this restaurant--once voted top Chinese restaurant in Delaware county no more than 5 years ago--has fallen from grace. I sincerely hope someone working from the restaurant reaches out to me and apologizes for the disgrace that was served to me...

Restaurant opened at 11:00 am , yet the staff wasn't very welcoming to us when we arrived at 11:35am on a Monday. Perhaps it was a language barrier, but the Sushi chef completely ignored our questions and we had to wait around 10 mins before someone approached our table. While we were eating, the chef sat at the sushi bar to enjoy a bowl of soup. A female customer sat next to him at the counter and asked if they were open for business. He ignored her also and moved to another table. The woman sat for another 5 mins without being approached and then abruptly left, obviously disgruntled. At this point, we then saw the chef pick his nose while sitting at the table. We ordered a lunch special of 20 pieces of sushi and each ordered a bowl of seafood soup. While the soup was tasty, we were disappointed that we were not able to choose which rolls the chef would make. We were told that the chef decides what we will eat. The sashimi presented was indeed fresh, but the normal portions of tuna, salmon and yellowtail. Upon finding my way to the restroom, I noticed a woman, that appeared to be the owner, sittting at one of the tables in the middle of the restaurant, preparing pork dumplings. Why she chose to do this in public view, instead of the kitchen, I am not sure. Pricing was quite reasonable, but the dining experience did not move me enough to brave a...

It honestly pains me to write this review because their food is seriously delicious. However the service we were given last night was down right terriable. I don’t remember the waiters name but he was the only male waiter I saw. For starters he ignored us for 15 mins (at the time it was not even busy he was just standing) we had to ask him for our initial drinks again after sitting for 15 mins. We never got tea which I noticed most other tables did. We asked for noodles he never brought them. I asked him a question about the menu and he was just down right rude and not very knowledgeable. He did not listen when we were ordering and ended up messing up one of the orders and corrected it by charging us extra. I had to ask three times for a refil on my drink and ended up asking one of the female waitresses who did get me my drink. However shortly after 3 people ran out of water and they never got a refil because he never came back. At the very end when we ordered our ice cream which we had to flag him down to do again he completely ignored what we ordered and just brought what he wanted. I really hope they correct their service atleast with this guy or hire new help because Their food doesn’t deserve the negative attention this...