Crystal Garden — Restaurant in Minneapolis

8/11/24 Edited to provide a response to the owner's comment:

What a disappointment. Your response is unprofessional, and again unapologetic for the lack of service that your team failed to provide. Go ahead, check your cameras all you want. I stand by my truth and the poor experience that my family and I had to endure.

Additionally, it is irrelevant to comment on my ratings on other places that I have visited. Like any other customer, Google Review provides customers with the platform to provide ratings based on how the experience was. Since you claim to have read my reviews on other places, you clearly missed that my highest review was not a 2 star, but a 5 star. Your restaurant fell short of recieving that, therefore your "investigation of who I am and where I have been" implies your characteristic as a business owner. Again, I stand by my truth and your response reaffirms that this is not a business I should give a second chance to, nor recommend to others. I am glad this post can remain public. 8/10/24 We were in the area and decided to try the restaurant out after seeing some reviews from our friends. When we walked in, we were greeted automatically and provided a table to sit. The place was empty, with only one other couple dining in. We had a toddler with us so we asked for a high chair, but did not get one. My husband stood there with our toddler for several minutes and thought the waiter was going to go get us one but he left and disappeared to the back and did not come back out. Confused, we looked around and saw a few stacked by the back door so I went to grab one instead. Their high chairs were sticky and had crumbs on it. We grabbed a napkin and had to wipe it down. Once we were ready to place our order, several of the items we wanted were already out for the day (this was around 3:30pm, the restaurant closes at 7pm). We then selected different items: 1 order of eggrolls, 1 boat noodle for my husband, 1 order of orange chicken for my kids, and 1 kapoon order for me. The waiter did check with the Manager regarding the kapoon (weekend special) and she confirmed that they still had kapoon left.

When the food arrived, the Manager brought everything out, all except the kapoon. My family was hungry so we began eating. 20 minutes in, the kapoon was still not out yet so we had to go find the waiter and check what the kapoon status was. The waiter went to the back kitchen and came back out to tell us that, "the kapoon was cooking, but that they had ran out of ice and the Manager left to Cub Foods to grab some." He wasn't sure when the dish will be ready, so we decided to wait and eat our other food instead. About 30-40 min later my husband my kids were all done with their food, but my kapoon order was still not here yet. By now, that other couple had left and no one else was dining in except us. My husband went and checked with the waiter again, and this time, the message we got was, "The Manager is not back yet and nobody knows how to cook the kapoon except the Manager. We don't know when she is going to return." Once we got that message, we knew we were finished being at this restaurant. The kapoon had not been prepped all along and we were expected to wait until the Manager mysteriously returns from buying ice to "begin cooking the dish".

This establishment is unprofessional with how they serve and communicate with their customers. We had to initiate all the updates with the waiter, who seemed inexperienced regarding his job. Not once did he check in on us during our dine-in experience. It baffels me that getting ice is more important than getting a dine-in customer's order ready. Furthermore, no apologies were provided for their lack of service. We ended up paying for the food we ate, and left. We will not be coming back and will not be recommending this...

Update: We just had dinner from the new owners and I'm glad to say it's much improved from the brief previous owners, who took over from the long term original owners. Updated to 3 stars from 1.

The pad thai was very well flavored, especially the chicken. The spring rolls were pretty good but lacked an herbal flavor from mint or cilantro.

As for Chinese favorites, the sesame chicken was also good though too salty. I appreciate that it came with steamed broccoli. Sadly it also came with just a tiny portion of rice. Given how cheap rice is it seems odd to skimp on that. Cream cheese wontons were fried a little too long and again the condiment cup should have been larger.

All in all a big improvement from the prior ownership and we will be back, but also didn't knock my socks off.

[Old review: I'm very sad, this place has been my favorite Chinese takeout location for years but it seems to have recently changed owners. The writing was on the wall recently -- they closed briefly last summer for a paint refresh, and the lovely former owners were getting up in age. Unfortunately all the new changes are bad. The recipes have changed and for the worse -- previously crispy and airy cream cheese wontons are now dense, cold and bland. The fried rice had a vaguely metallic smoky flavor. The sesame chicken, previously sweet, crispy chunks of lightly breaded meat, is now dry, thinly sliced and unbreaded chicken. The beef and pea pods was OK and the broccoli I added to my sesame chicken was tender crisp, but overall a huge...

I get Chinese takeout from here every since I moved to the area. I would really take some of the 1 star reviews with a grain of salt. It is takeout, not a Michelin star restaurant.

I will say that everytime I have been here they have ALWAYS been super nice and kind to me. The older man and woman remind me of how nice and gentle my grandparents are.

Also it is takeout. What would I expect out of it? Something along the lines of what I would expect for fast food in general. It's good stuff and I got my food in less than 10 minutes. I literally walked over there and bam it was already done.

I usually get lo mein and fried rice. Pretty solid stuff. It's nothing special BUT the friendly customer service personally makes me want to support them.

Quick note, their menu is outdated on their website it looks like. I attached some pictures of the updated menu here.

Food: 4 out of 5 for fast food/takeout Customer service: 5 out of 5 Speed: 5 out of...