South China Restaurant — Restaurant in Richfield

⭐️⭐️⭐️ – “Chewy meat, sleepy vibes, and a Utah-style sizzle that fizzled.”

"When your dad teaches you to value buffet quantity over flavor, this is what you grow up expecting."

Let’s get this out of the way—I’m not a huge fan of Chinese food. Probably because I was raised on sad buffet trays filled with lukewarm mystery meat and enough sweet & sour sauce to drown a horse. My dad was a quantity-over-quality guy, and Utah's small-town Chinese joints rarely rise above that bar.

South China Restaurant in Richfield, Utah? Pretty much exactly what I expected: big portions, basic flavors, and enough leftovers to feed a second family. It wasn’t bad… just incredibly average in the most Utah way possible.

🔥 Assorted Meat Sizzling Platter – 6.3 This is the dish that comes out steaming, which always looks impressive—but this wasn’t fajitas. The sauce lacked depth, the meats were chewy, and the char siu (Chinese BBQ pork) had about as much flavor as boiled tofu. It sizzled, sure, but so does disappointment.

🍚 Ham Fried Rice – 6.9 Dry. Like desert-dry. But nothing a few extra hits of soy sauce couldn’t fix. Once doctored, it actually hit the spot. Savory, salty, and definitely the best thing on the table. My kids will destroy the leftovers with zero complaints.

🎎 Atmosphere & Service

The restaurant was clean, which is always appreciated. Background music was soft Chinese instrumentals—soothing to the point of nap-inducing. Unfortunately, I was seated near a table of ten rowdy senior citizens who were letting it rip like it was bingo night at a casino. I almost shushed them… but then realized the only thing worse than being that guy is being the grumpy young guy starting a turf war with geriatrics in a Chinese restaurant. So I let it go.

Bottom line: 🥩 Sizzling meat needs more than heat—it needs seasoning. 🍚 Fried rice pulled its weight once the soy got involved. 🎼 The ambiance might lull you to sleep—or into a moral dilemma about yelling at old people.

Final verdict: A middle-of-the-road Chinese joint that delivers quantity and predictability. Not great, not awful—but if you’re in Richfield and want big portions with a side of sleepy nostalgia,...

My family and I stopped in Richfield Utah because of the small town/family oriented reviews we saw and decided to try and eat at some places that were outside our comfort levels and this place was recommended to us. First and foremost, with covid in full swing, you’d imagine that the staff would somewhat coincide with the standard safety protocols... they did not. Our family ordered ahead and thought we’d just hop on in, pay for our food, and then head to our hotel without any fuss. This was not the case. My wife entered the premises with a mask on and an order that was well beyond the suggested pick up time and found out that the order was given to some other guest.

This was totally fine with us as one of us has worked in the food industry and know that this sort of thing happens from time to time but rewind an hour or so with our experience and the warning signs were there to not follow through with the order... we were on hold for 15+ minutes when we tried to order after traveling 9 hours.... we thought they would be busy so we gave them the benefit of the doubt. Once we arrived we found out that we were on hold for so long because everyone who works there has zero regard for the hungry guests trying to get a bite to eat and would rather see the phones ringing while they fraternize with their friends.

All in all, their portions are very generous but the food is extremely bland and had to throw out a very large portion. Avoid this place at all costs and avoid staying...

Today we chose to give the South China Restaurant some business. They weren’t very busy and still it took the server a long time to come to get our order. This has been typical during our last few visits, and on one previous occasion we even got up and left since no one would take our order. Today the food was disappointing. The rice and pot-stickers were cold. It seems the food is getting worse. And when the bill came to pay, the server said he would be our cashier. He kept pushing that he had to be our cashier even after the server was told we would pay the bill at the cashier desk. The server claimed they didn’t do that any longer and said the payment had to go through him. This made us feel really uneasy as we simply didn’t trust this server at this point to have our credit card alone. When walking up to pay the bill the server followed us to the cashier desk but the server made the point to avoid helping us pay the bill. After a wait, the server came to take our payment. He was no longer polite and was blunt with us. I had even left a tip that I now wish I hadn’t due to this server's poor hospitality. This may just be the last straw for the South China Restaurant for us and we'll happily support other restaurants...