The Orient Restaurant — Restaurant in Maryland

Heard a lot of good things about this unassuming (from the exterior) restaurant so time to give it a try. I went to the restaurant around 2:30pm on a Friday afternoon. Placed my order and waited less than 15 minutes as the place was mostly empty. Our order consisted of egg rolls, shrimp toast, pork fried rice, pork egg foo young, and Mongolian beef. (See photo for all items received including white rice, condiments, and fortune cookies.) We were delighted to see what used to be normal sized egg rolls ($4.50)! Beautifully cooked, full, and crunchy! That’s enough to bring me back right there! The shrimp toast ($8.95) was a surprise as again, back to the good old days, the order was eight pieces, not four as is the norm these days. It was just a tad dark and past being perfectly fried but not greasy. The pork fried rice ($7.95/small) was good with plenty of meat and veggies (no scrambled egg though - it wasn’t missed). The pork egg fu young ($10.95) was accompanied by the usual brown sauce on the side. Three fat patties were filled with pork and vegetables and, again, not greasy. Nothing worse than taking patties out of the container and seeing an ocean of oil. The Mongolian beef ($10.95/small) was the only disappointment. The lack of onion in the dish was very noticeable as well as the very thin sauce. But there was an abundance of cabbage, and the beef slices were good sized as well. Our meal was about $47.00 with plenty for several meals over the next few days. There’s plenty of parking available, too. No mention was made when our order was placed but apparently there’s free soda with some orders. There was a can of grape, orange and lemon soda in the bag. We weren’t asked for a choice and, as we don’t drink soda, I gave the cans to a customer leaving when we did. I definitely will be going back again to try some...

I rarely leave negative reviews. It has to be pretty bad. And it was. My go-to place closed and decided to try the Orient on a recomendation from a friend. I will never learn. I should have made a small order to see how the food was before going hog wild. All three of us had shrimp and lobster sauce. God as my witness, the S&LS was like dishwasher with absolutely no taste. I tried a little salt...still horrible. After 2 goes, trying various things to try and make it edible, I gave up and tossed it out. You would think at least you have the shrimp...bit they were dry and overcooked. The ribs were also dry and tasteless. I was choking on the rib meat it was so dry. The egg drop soup was good. It's hard to damage soup. 3 or 4 ingredients there. If I was a survivor of a plane wreck on a deserted island, I may be coaxed to eat the shrimp toast but otherwise I would starve. It was also somewhat tasteless, I believe the shrimp toast had been sitting awhile or perhaps the fryer oil needs to be changed. OMG, this was probably the worst food I have ever eaten. My husband and I have health issues or I would have driven it back to the restaurant. We had the food delivered because of our situation. If you still intend to try the food, I would stick to something like pepper steak. Another dish that's hard to mess up. Folks, it takes a lot for me to enter a bad review but it is warranted and I hope this post saves you some money before you end up with a table full of food that...

I had given The Orient 5 stars because for the year that I've been ordering from them, everything has been great. But this time around, I had placed an order for delivery on a Friday, and realized the next day that they had charged me twice, and in different amounts. I had called Saturday to find out what happened and was told a generic answer...that my bank had probably declined the first payment and that's why it was charged 2x. That doesn't even make sense. If the payment was declined, they wouldn't have made my order and sent it out for delivery. Then the guy tells me that it's probably just a pending payment and one of them should be knocked off my account in a couple of days. Well, a couple of days passed and I was still being charged for 2 whole payments that were different amounts. So I call again. Turns out, he told me the same thing...that it was pending and that I should wait. I'm like, "Dude, it's not "pending" anymore, so what should I do?" He tells me that I need to come into the restaurant and call my bank in front of him and dispute the charges, or there's nothing else he can do. Like, who does that?? While I understand that there may have been nothing he could have immediately done, a huge mistake was made by the restaurant that cost me greatly, and to be told that there's nothing else he can do is completely unacceptable for customer service. It may not even matter since their food is so delicious, but they just...