Chinese Kitchen — Restaurant in Little Rock

As my dining companion at lunch today at Chinese Kitchen said, "This is the ultimate mom and pop place." The older couple, apparently husband and wife, who took our order and prepared our food could not have been nicer. We appreciated that they gave us bottles of water free when we asked for water with our meal. And when the man, who seems to do most of the cooking, brought our food out to us, he couldn't have been more congenial and polite.

Given how nice the folks owning and running Chinese Kitchen are, I'd love to give this restaurant 5 stars. I can't do that in good conscience, though, because the food is at best only a serviceable highly Americanized version of Chinese food. It lacks much taste or finesse. There are better Americanized "Chinese" restaurants in our local community.

But this is the kind of "Chinese" food many people in central Arkansas really crave, so Chinese Kitchen does a robust business, though it's primarily a take-out place with only three small tables for dine-in customers. Your food comes to you at those tables already in styrofoam take-out boxes, too.

The calling cards here for some folks are the two dishes that incorporate fried chicken, warr shui guy and precious chicken. I had the latter, and it was okay, though not in any way exceptional. The batter for the chicken is overly salty, the vegetables served with the chicken are way too overcooked, and there's no hint of seasoning of any kind (e.g., ginger, garlic) other than salt. On the plus side, there were lots of chunks of fried chicken in my serving of precious chicken.

So, great welcome and treatment by the owners-cooks, not much atmosphere, and unexceptional Americanized Chinese food: that's...

This is REAL Chinese food!!!! Old world style. Bean sprouts and green onions in the fried rice, no peas and carrots here. Perfectly cooked egg foo yung packed with bean sprouts. The ONLY place in Arkansas that I know of where you can get REAL Chinese food.

Being used to Chicago Chinese food I was shocked to see peas and carrots in fried rice. I called the waitress and told her I ordered shrimp fried rice. I couldn't understand the peas and carrots. I accepted that this was Chinese food in Arkansas until I discovered CHINESE KITCHEN in 1994.

I've tried to convince the owners through the years to expand to other locations and add a dinning room. But, they want to keep it small, family operated and take out.

I love the owners, even though I never learned her name, the wife is always so nice and happy to see me. Sometimes I'm not able to go in she has come out to speak to me.

This place is a treasure and I pray it will be passed down to younger generations to provide real Chinese food to future...

I ordered Combo Fried Rice and 2 Egg Rolls. Price seemed good. As I began eating my meal I observed a few things. First the rice was NOT fried and was mushy. Second the egg rolls we're way over cooked and hard as a rock with little to nothing in them. The shrimp was extra small and only few and very little to if any other meats chicken and pork. They were both stringy... very little to no substance. I stopped about a quarter through and couldn't eat another bite. The restraunt itself has very little to any Chinese memorabilia etc not sure I was in a Chinese restaurant. Shortly after eating I found myself in the bathroom upset stomach ugh I will never go back and not sure it...