Gao's BBQ & Crab — Restaurant in New York

I believe this is yet another chain watering down Flushing's unique food culture with more expensive food that is advertised well but lacking in other aspects.

When you first walk in, it's decorated for the season with Halloween ghosties on an exposed pipe exposed brick aesthetic, table bottoms made of said pipe. It's fairly clean and well maintained/new. We were quickly seated at 5pm on a Friday - not crowded yet.

Food is ordered by scanning a QR code at your table. The menu is available in Chinese and English. You start with free sunflower seeds.

We had the lamb skewers happy hour ($1 each before 6pm!), special crawfish, okra salad, wonton soup, tin of garlic clams with vermicelli, smoky garlicky eggplant, and the week's special - squid. Some dishes were good and many others were not.

The first few lamb skewers were so good we immediately ordered more. Unfortunately, the second round took quite a while to arrive and were not nearly as good as the first.... They were thicker and tougher pieces of meat and not as well seasoned. For the "Special crawfish" we are provided with plastic gloves for easier clean up. It was overpoweringly numbing and salty. In fact, all of the dishes were far too salty and had us guzzling the very refreshing lemon mint water. The crawfish was also clearly frozen or dead before, with a fall apart texture...overall not good. Okra was ok to start but also too salty. Taste wasn't amazing.

Wonton soup had good wonton skin texture but nearly gristly meat filling.

Clam with vermicelli was much better - good texture on the clam, providing great juices for the noodles to soak up. Eggplant had a nice smoky char on the bottom, lots of oil garlic etc seasoning on top.

Week special squid was tough and rubbery. Sauces did not suit it.

Though this restaurant is really trying with the atmosphere, and may have a fun drink selection with beer towers etc for groups, I cannot recommend it for anyone trying to have a good meal - or if you do come, do make a lot of special requests on each item because this takes restaurant salt and oil to another level. Be careful...

Wow, now where do I start with this place. This is the third time I've been here and this will be my last time I will come here. The first disappointment was I was I wanted the crab seafood boil and the first and second time I was able to switch the shrimp with mussels because I am allergic to shrimp. I called over a server to ask if I could switch the shrimp out because I am ALLERGIC. I was told no and I informed them the previous time where I was able to switch it out. The server called over his follower server and he had an attitude when calling over the other server and I informed him about the situation and I was told that they couldn't. I asked was the seafood boil was pre-made and they said no so I'm confused as to why they could just cross off the shrimp and put mussel. So my next problem arose when the ridiculous wait time I saw table after table get their food while me and my table were left to twiddle our thumbs. When the food came ot was good but the seafood boil was a disappointment. It needed more sauce and lacked it. Then they didn't have any apron, no bucket to put the shell from the shrimp and crab(someone else at the table got the seafood boil) they only had these small bowls to put the scraps. Wow how far this pace has fallen in the last few months that I haven't been here. If you want overpriced skewers then you have found your place. On top of that, they don't even have the crushers to break the crab legs. The last straw was when we were given scissors to cut the crab and we asked for assistance from the second server. Mind you he was informed that I am allergic to shrimp and the seafood boil came with shrimp. He proceeded to cut the crab above the skewers allowing the juice from the crab to get on the skewers. On top of everything while we were eating on the wall behind us we saw a roach crawling on the wall. So my question is what do they have besides the ability to get on my last nerve? 0/10 would...

GAO's BBQ & Crab, this is how you run a great local business as in my opinion one of the best restaurant/bars in all of Queens county let alone flushing! I've been coming here for years with my wife and aunt before I had moved to Vegas and admittedly, not often enough... came back recently and couldn't wait to get back into the restaurant. You are greeted with an impressive welcoming awesome staff and by staff, I mean EVERY SINGLE MEMBER who will greet you with handsome smiles and just awesome hospitality that makes you feel like you're a regular from your first sit down, and at first glance, the restaurant looks small, but it's long stretch of large tables opens up towards the back into a lounge like area with plenty more tables and many with outlets to charge your devices and a Karaoke stage! Not sure if I've ever heard anyone do karaoke there but just by how cool they are, I'm sure if you ask if you can sing, they'll "say which song?" It's bigger than it looks, trust. Now I'm all for hospitality but what's good service if it ain't got the food to back it up? And do they have good food? What types of food is there? Just YES. Now, I've been Korean-American all my life, but I'm also a flushing native and I've tried pretty much nearly every Chinese restaurant flushing had birthed and although I see some 'not authentic cuisine' comments and while I cannot comment on authenticity even with my qualifications, the great bursts of distinct sweet, spicy, savory, umamimy that every dish brings puts a damn satisfied authentic smile on my wife's face. She's Sichuanese btw. The owner should be proud as I'm sure he is for putting together a great team to compliment an exceptionally well balanced and diverse menu and I do believe it will be a staple of the community for years and years to come. Thank you guys for always being great, and OMG right, the CHICKEN SKIN IS A MUST ABOVE ALL ELSE! No one does...