Szechuan Garden Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Knoxville

I found this place online and we were hanging around Knoxville for the day, so I wanted to try this place out. I took my sister and my partner here. We came here for dinner, and it was a relatively small place that had one server going around the tables. I ordered fried dumplings as an appetizer, which was something they had written on their board as a limited item, so I assumed that meant that they were housemade. Unfortunately, though, it seems that they were manufactured and frozen, which was a disappointment to me. I should have asked, but I thought that the implication of it being limited meant that they were housemade... that was my mistake! They were pretty flavorless to me, but most frozen ones are. The sauce it came with helped a lot. For dinner, they have a dinner combination that comes with an egg roll, soup, and an entree with fried rice. An amazing deal. I asked if I could get pork lo mein instead of chicken lo mein, because the price on the regular menu for them is the same, and I was told no. So I ordered the chicken lo mein with wonton soup as my soup. The wonton soup was pretty good, but the meat could have had more flavor. The broth was nice and savory. The egg roll was lacking on the flavor for me, it had some black pepper element to it which was interesting. The chicken lo mein itself was really good to me. A little greasy and sweet, which my sister did not like, but I enjoyed it. The fried rice was overall bland but could be doctored up with some reasoning and soy sauce. Overall, the meal was about average, but for the price, it was amazing. The service was also really good. One person was going around the tables and being super attentive, which I give props too. I'm not sure I would come back to this place, but it was nice to...

Ok, with all the reviews posted, we were unsure if we should try this place. In this area most Chinese restaurants are clones of each other. Same menus with all the expected selections are the typical scenario.

If ambiance is all that matters to you, this place aint it. But, it is clean and the food was worth another visit.

We would rate 4 stars at this time - We have lived in the area and eaten at many Chinese restaurants over a decade, we are rating this from that point of view.

The Won-ton soup tasted good, and the won-tons were cooked correctly (not overcooked)

The Egg Rolls were filled with pork and flavor and had a crispy and flaky wrap.

The Crab Rangoon's were crunchy and creamy, and had great flavor.

The Cashew chicken came in a brown sauce with a side of rice and the flavor was better than we expected and we enjoyed it.

We also got the Eight Treasure Chicken which had peanuts, cashews, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, chicken, water chestnuts, thin sliced carrots and green peppers. It was also in a mild brown sauce that was very tasty and a bit addictive.

The service was friendly as was the atmosphere.

They have Tsing Tao if you like Chinese beer. They also, oddly enough, have Red Stripe Jamaican beer, which of course is IRIE ;)

We will return since the lunch menu has 63 combination platters and the dinner menu has at least 250 plate selections and at least 45 combination platters to choose from.

I would recommend eating here since it was one of the best local places (from Oak Ridge to South Knoxville) that we have found so far.

It is not PFCHANGS but $7.75 for a dinner combination plate is a heck of a bargain for good food and a...

Update: Went back here with my family and we had an even better experience! Staff was in a good mood from the very start, seated right away in a booth (3 people), each got a different rice+meat dish and so many eggrolls 😂 Normal wait time as you would expect from cooking a fresh batch of food, delicious and hot! The hot and Sour soup is the exact soup you need for any viral ailment, cleans out the nostrils from it's perfect spicyness. There was even enough left over to take a little home if you wanted. The lunch was so delicious my family looked up the location for when they are next traveling through ✨ 10/10 will be back again!

Original: Wonderful staff, beautiful interior, there wasn't an overbearing number of guests and I was seated right away! I ordered the lunch special General Tso chicken with Eggdrop soup which came out in a mindful timeliness (not all at once!). Soup was delicious (pictured: Egg drop soup) and the General Tso wasn't too spicy though you could certainly ask for it hotter! Portioned just right for a sizeable man and a steal for only $7-$8! 4 stars because something started tasting odd towards the end which might have been the overcooked sauce at the...