Joy Garden Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Newark

I've been coming to Joy Garden for decades now - living right around the corner and moving in to my childhood home has allowed me to share with my family some of the restaurants that I've always loved.

Joy Garden was always a reminder of the way Chinese Food should be. I've traveled a lot over the years and I always find myself comparing other restaurants to this place. No one has been able to live up to them.

With that being said, I've noticed a definite down-turn in quality in the past few years. This restaurant has been run by the same family for several decades - I always recognize the woman who I've seen for years, who is always a joy to speak with, and I've even now met her son taking orders, which is always a pleasure to see the family continuing the tradition of their hard-worked business!

I believe that the economy has caused an uptick in cost; however, the increase combined with a lower-than-expected quality has been a sad disappointment. The restaurant is in dire need of revamping, and I would normally be able to look past this for quality food, but I'm left lacking from what they used to be.

Perhaps changes in food regulations have contributed to recent changes, possibly Covid issues have affected the way things are done... this restaurant still offers "steamed chicken dumplings," which are near-impossible to find elsewhere... but things simply aren't the same.

I couldn't imagine finding another place to satisfy my needs, but rising prices, lack of transparency regarding pricing and an overall change of food-quality, I cannot in good conscience rate them as highly as my nostalgia would wish.

I wish these folks the best and hope for better days. I will still continue to patronage this establishment but hope they find a way to bring things back to their golden age so that generations more can enjoy the quality that I had come to rely on.

Please do continue to support these wonderful people, as they are truly great...

I don't recommend this place. When I called in an order for the first time, I asked not to have carrots or celery in my kung pao chicken (those vegetables are used as filler at cheaper Chinese restaurants), but a few minutes later, they called me back to tell me that "it is pre-mixed so they can't do it." I think we all know it's ridiculous that they pre-mix vegetables with raw chicken, so they really just didn't want to do it. My concerns were justified, because when the order arrived, it was virtually all filler vegetables and no chicken (to their credit, there were mushrooms in there that were pretty good), so basically we paid $12 for a quart of kung pao carrots. The chicken with broccoli was almost as bad, though had a bit more of a ratio of chicken. The sesame chicken, which is typically my family's favorite dish at a Chinese restaurant, was apparently not very good. (Even though the rest of the meal was not great, the hot and sour soup was actually pretty good) There are other take-out Chinese places in the area, and I recommend choosing another.

One other quick note: there is a handwritten sign on their counter saying "Due to rising beef prices, beef dishes will be charged $1 extra" (that's a paraphrase, not the actual sign, but that's basically what it says). We didn't order any beef dishes, so if you are calling in your order, you should ask whether they are applying this...

Here’s my first time ordering take out because I realized it was the only option once I stepped in the restaurant. No a/c nor tables and chairs to customers seat and the ones there where worn out and/damaged/dusty. I almost turned around but decided to give it a shot. I ordered the large house fried rice and a shrimp with vegetables combination which includes pork fried rice and an egg roll. The food was fine, if they added a little bit more flavor I’ll rated very good. Portions are good for the rice but the shrimp size was too small, maybe ok for the rice but not on a main entree dish. Vegetables were really good, that’s a plus. But there wasn’t sauce to accompany the egg roll on the bag, maybe was forgotten. Overall I think with a little of more investment on the place might be a better option for the future. I hope this helps the owners if they care enough for...