Chopsticks — Restaurant in Herndon

Chopsticks is inconsistent. We had delivery of wontons, egg rolls, Chicken in black bean sauce, Pad Thai, and Chicken fried rice.

The good: the wontons and egg rolls were well made and fried to a golden crisp, the wontons filling though has gotten smaller over the years and mostly disappeared. The chicken with black bean sauce was excellent, well cooked and seasoned. There was a decent amount of chicken and there were lots of vegetables.

The not as good: the Pad Thai was overly lemony. It tasted like someone made lemon chicken with the wrong noodles and added peanuts to it. There were 4 lemon slices on the dish and the lemon flavor greatly overpowered everything. The fried rice was ok, it was kind of gluey - like it had been over steamed after frying.

Normally, Chopsticks rates a 5 from me but today's was not a great experience. I was thinking of giving the food 3 stars, but I tend to want to see a trend before going down 2 stars. Perhaps the main chef had tonight off, or just an off night.

I have always liked their Mushu pork and their kung pao chicken but we tried something...

Their website layout is terrible, but understandable for the most part. As mentioned earlier, the people that work there tend to have heavy accents, so ordering on the phone may be a problem if you have issues with accents.

However, when I was working nearby I would go almost every day and try something new. I thought most of their food was delicious although too many onions, which tends to be an issue with most Asian dishes and me. I didn't try any of their Vegitarian or Thai foods, but their Sushi and Chinese dishes were great. There was once or twice when I walked in and watched them rolling the spring rolls or prepping some other food. It was nice to see simple things like that weren't prepackaged.

Their service was never a problem for me after getting past the inital phase of sitting down and ordering. They seem to be very loyal to return...

This is the first time we ordered from this restaurant, which was done as a surprise for me by my husband.

I wish that the soups displayed the ingredients on the menu. My husband ordered online and came to find once he got the order home that the Thai Hot and Sour was mostly shrimp and mushrooms - two ingredients that I am unable to consume as they are high in purines. Also missing was the traditional Hot and Sour soup he ordered.

On the plus side, the General Tso's was very tasty, as was their version of chicken chow mein with a very delicately prepared sauce with delicious vegetables. I am looking forward to eating the small tray of Japanese sushi which I've put aside for tonight.

We will give Chopsticks another try now that we know we need to inquire as to the ingredient composition...