Szechuan Garden Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Hillsboro

Long ago, when the Vietnamese restaurant changed to Chinese, I came out of curiosity but found the dishes like Dan Dan Noodles weren't anything special, so I never returned. Recently, I found out the restaurant shares the exact same menu as Tasty Corner Chinese Restaurant in Portland, even down to the dish photos and item numbers (whether they're sister establishments remains unclear). So we decided come again. We ordered String Bean Chicken (L21) and Mandarin Crispy Chicken (L11) from the lunch specials. The string beans seemed thawed and old, mushy without any crunch, and not tasty; my husband could only manage two bites. Even the fried rice we chose as a side lacked flavor and was not enjoyable at all. As for the Mandarin Crispy Chicken, if it were Orange Chicken, it might have been delicious, but the sweet sauce was overpowering, and it didn't taste like 'crispy chicken'. It's possible that just what we ordered wasn't good though.😓 07/03/2024 Last time, we were disappointed with the lunch sets we ordered, but we couldn't help noticing that the regulars at another table, who seemed to be Chinese, were enjoying different dishes that looked delicious. Intrigued, we decided to try some à la carte dishes ourselves. We opted for the Mapo Tofu and Seafood Fried Rice, and to our surprise, both were so delicious. They left us impressed. So much so, that just a couple of days later, we returned and savored the Seafood Crispy Noodles and Cold Noodles, both of which were also delightful. We've decided to skip the lunch sets from now on! 🤣 I'm eager to explore more of their menu. I'm adjusting my rating to 4 stars! 08/01/2024 *Szechuan Beef Lunch(L34) *Szechuan Bean Jelly(11) Both...

Szechuan Garden is a local gem. We visited with low expectations, and it was a snowy cold day so they had only one other customer when we arrived. It always feels a little odd to enter in a nearly empty restaurant... but actually, this turned out to be one of our best Chinese meals in the whole Portland Beaverton Hillsboro metro area. Fresh quality ingredients, authentic tasting sauces and flavors, not overloaded with sugar and salt... as you know already, a picture speaks 1000 words, so don't take my word for it, just take a look at my summary photo... Enjoy!

Note to the reader: this restaurant’s food is mostly great, but it hasn’t been as consistently excellent every single time we visit; they do have some unexpected dips, for example last time we were here, we were celebrating a special occasion bur our food was kind of too dry… like overcooked other reheated. It was still tasty but we are experienced foodies, come on! We felt that probably they rotate chefs, and the fact that one of them is mediocre is kind of evident to those of us who are real foodies. Also, our service was kind of meh the second time, the young man and woman who waited tables were kind of distracted and didn’t seem to care as much, and it shows. The young guy was constantly on his phone and we had to jump out of our seat to ask him things, he didn’t really follow through.

This is why I reduce my star rating to 4 stars out of 5. We support local, but please be...

I wanted to love it, but a few major problems really affected my rating.

First the waitress broke my smartphone by pulling my menu off the table and sending the phone flying. It was an accident and she did apologize but is indicative of her lack of care. This same waitress came to our table twice to take our order in span of 10 minutes. One of those times my wife and both kids were gone to the rest room. I appreciate not having to wait but this felt more like being pushed.

Once our food arrived it looked amazing. We ordered an appetizer of Shanghai style dumplings which were very good. All 4 of us shared an order of combination fried rice which was also excellent and not overly oily as some can be. My wife and I ordered szechuan squid and chicken. These had good flavor, but were extremely salty. This was our first real szechuan peppercorn experience and I understand now that they enhance the saltiness of food (in addition to the numbing sensation) but even given that, the salt was so much it was borderline inedible.

I may give this place another shot, because the menu was full of a lot of really authentic looking dishes that you just don't find in most places around. But another experience like this and I...