Red Corner China Diner — Restaurant in Midvale

How to describe our experience here is, well, maddening. I figured that with so many fantastic reviews it must be good. I think it could be, but for now I can't rate it any better than mediocre.

The first evidence was on the sidewalk, before we even entered the building. I should have been paying attention, but wasn't, so I completely missed this until we were leaving. As you can see in the picture the entrance is beyond dirty. The amount of grease that has walked out this entrance, and never been cleaned, is astounding. If this is how the entrance looks, just imagine how the areas you can't see look.

I wanted to order something that I figured I would like, such as Mongolian beef, but decided to order something that didn't show up in any reviews for them. I ordered the curry beef as it comes with veggies. My spouse ordered the lemon chicken with an upgrade to ham fried rice. The ham fried rice upgrade is rather costly, but we wanted to see if it was worth the extra dough.

Within two minutes a server brought out some wonton's and spring rolls to us telling us to enjoy the appetizers. At first I thought that maybe we had ordered a meal that came with appetizers, but there was so much there, it had to be a mistake. Within another two minutes she brought a soup. We explained we hadn't ordered any soup or appetizers. The server took the food away. It appeared the table nearest our booth had ordered the food as they soon had soup, wonton's, and spring rolls on their table.

Our food came out a few minutes later. The lemon chicken looked amazing. It was drenched in sauce, but was fried perfectly, so it was super crispy. The sauce was super sweet, so just be sure, if you get it, to mix it with enough rice so as to not overpower the rest of the food. We both enjoyed the chicken. The ham fried rice it came with was so so. I can't say it was worth the price of the upgrade. Normally ham fried rice is made with cold or even day old rice. The grains are separate, tender, and tasty. The flavor of this was decent. However, the rice was mush. It seemed like they cooked already hot rice even longer to make it ham fried.

The curry beef was piping hot and came out with a small bowl of white rice. This rice was mushy. Both rice dishes were so mushy you could see the grains splitting apart. The aroma from the curry beef was inviting, almost tantalizing. After one taste of the sauce I knew I had made a mistake in my order. It seemed the curry sauce used beef gravy, like you might get in an American diner, flavored with curry. It tasted ok, but had no semblance of being anything oriental. I never add soy sauce to a dish, but a few splashes into the beef vastly improved the flavor.

This restaurant seems like with a few small improvements to detail and food it could be a fantastic place to eat, but for now it's not a place I feel I...

I am blown away. I find it so difficult to find a decent Chinese place and this place exceeded all expectations. I run a food establishment and I have extremely high standards and I’m a critical judge of food. It’s very rare for most places to even be mediocre and this place has far exceeded that. There wasn’t any aspect of my meal that wasn’t cooked to perfection with an amazing combination of balanced flavor. I rarely am impressed enough to leave a review but I couldn’t resist.

I ordered the General Tso chicken and some house fried rice for delivery. The order got here quickly and was piping hot still which indicates that the order didn’t sit after it was made and the driver works with a sense of urgency. Everything was packaged well in these containers with clear lids which made it easy to identify what we got.

The General Tso chicken was cooked so well. It wasn’t too sweet and the sauce wasn’t too thick like sugar items that cook to long. You can actually taste the chili peppers. A wonderful balance of the spicy and sweet. It’s not spicy in heat but the flavor is still there. The chicken you can tell taste very fresh because it doesn’t have weird hint of ammonia like flavor you get when using older chicken. The chicken was cooked perfectly. It was chewy and was perfectly soft and moist. They batter on the chicken was perfectly cooked. The ends of the chicken pieces had a nice crisp to it while the chicken was perfectly tender. Absolute perfect texture and the little crispy parts was pure joy to my brain and taste buds. It was like meat candy in my mind. I was so excited every time I got that crisp.

The house fried rice was also amazing. The rice was perfectly tender. It wasn’t clumpy, sticky, chewy, or bland. The rice was perfectly tender. I do wish there was more than three pieces of shrimp but they were decent size and cooked very well. They weren’t chewy or had that fishy taste. The chicken and pork also cooked perfectly tender and great distribution. The rice was fried perfectly where there wasn’t any rice that was fried to long where parts of it would be crispy and hard. The veggies were soft and obviously not old.

This place seriously made my day and I can’t stop thinking about that meal. I’m really excited to try other things on the menu. Very well done to whoever owns and runs that place. I love people that want to be the best and take pride in creating a perfect...

So I csme in a rush just to get a quick lunch while I was taking a break on 10/17/2024 (yesterday) and I orders the chow mein and she said warmed me that “we have the crispy noodles” which I was fine with but then out comes these prepackaged crispy thick noodles and I didn’t realize they were not cooked in house. So once it comes out I ask if I can order something else instead and she tells me that it’s fine, I finish my meal and the bill comes with the chow mein as well as the other things which I did eat. I did not eat it because it wasn’t what I expected and so I asked it to be taken off the bill. Someone else tells me that she can make a discount but she cannot take it off. I ask for a manager but there isn’t one in the store at that time? While I’m waiting for a response from the manager cause they said they would call her the server said if I don’t pay that the meal has to come out of her paycheck… I’ve worked customer service and i understand they don’t make a lot so I pay for the whole thing and leave a tip they even left a box for me to take the chow mein but it looked so unappealing that I just left it at the table. But even after I said I would pay for it all it took them 10 minutes to even get me the bill again so I could pay. Absolutely ridiculous and horrible management if you’re making your employees pay for meals that needed to get sent back you’re going to run the place into the ground. I will not be back and am warning students at the barber school to avoid this business that takes advantage of...