China Garden Restaurant — Restaurant in Livermore

For the past year, China Garden has become my go-to Chinese restaurant in the Tri-Valley. Pre-pandemic, I use to go onsite for their lunch specials - the lunches are a strong value at around $10 and included an entrée, fried rice, chow mein, soup, salad, and spring rolls. The food is good, comes out fast, and the restaurant is clean. The wait staff is really nice too; for example, the times I've taken my Kindergarten-aged son for lunch, the primary waitress who's on the floor has been very playful towards him. These lunch specials are pretty standard fare for most Chinese restaurants that cater to American audiences.

During the pandemic, I've been taking advantage of their delivery services for dinner. This worked out pretty well given it's given me a reason to try some of the other items on their menu that I probably wouldn't have considered because I of my penchant for lunch specials. My new standard items include Spicy Crispy Tofu, Mapo Tofu, Chicken and Corn soup, and the Combination Chow Mein. I'm especially pleased with their Mapo Tofu, which reminds me of my mom's cooking and hits just the right spice levels.

Regarding deliveries, they're inexpensive at $2 within a certain radius (I think it's a little bit more if it's further out). The delivers are always the same two people - they are consistent with speedy deliveries, wearing masks, waiting 6+ feet away after ringing the doorbell to ensure that the food is collected, and generally just...

The food was actually pretty good. We were inspired by a prior review and ordered spicy fried tofu, mapo tofu, chicken corn soup, mixed chow fun, and mixed egg foo young. The mapo tofu was flavorful, spicy and excellent. The fried tofu was piping hot and very good. The corn soup was fresh and the chou fun had excellent wok hei. The portion sizes were good for all dishes.

Now the not so good, for which I had to deduct 2 stars. The egg foo young was pretty bad, without salt, full of bland corn starch and nothing like the crispy, egg-laced patties you get in other parts of the country. The lady talking the order duplicated my chou fun and charged me for it, which I didn't realize till later. But most importantly, I found an inch long piece of metal fastener in my food (photo attached). This can happen, but is incredibly dangerous, and I hope the restaurant owners read this review and take corrective action. I would go back though and support this...

Been coming here for years during lunch hours. Great restaurant to dine in. Found out today that prices has gone up significantly. $3.00 more per lunch plates and gratuity are applied to receipt. For a quick lunch @ $20+ is too much. This maybe my last lunch here.

01-25-24 I've been a regular here for many many years. It's twice now that the 2 very nice waitress have over charged and also included gratuity on a lunch dine in. Usually, they would hand over the receipt for you to tip and sign at the front registered. That wasn't the case today. She just handed me the receipt and walked away. I decided to look at the charges on the merchant receipt itself. I was over charged $1.50 for my food + gratuity of $3.25 was applied to my lunch special. Total of $21.29 for lunch. I won't be coming back anymore period if there's dirty business going on here. It was good while it lasted. I won't be coming...