House of Wong — Restaurant in Roseville

Last night my wife and I decided to visit the House of Wong after seeing all the great reviews on here. After our experience, I just had to leave a review.

Our visit to the House of Wong started by walking into an extremely busy waiting area. There were groups waiting to be seated and those waiting for their takeout orders. Initially we thought that this was a good sign, a busy restaurant must mean great food. So we made out way to the hostess to find out the wait time and get our name on the waiting list. The first red flag of our visit was the hostess didn't have a wait estimate, she could only tell us that they were busy. We accepted that the wait could take a while and got our name on the list (spelling it out for the hostess in the process), and our wait began.

And it was a wait, a longer wait than I would ever expect from this type of restaurant. During this wait I made an interesting realization, nearly all of the patrons were old (60+), which to me seemed odd since we were there at 6pm. The only people close to our age (late 20s), were individuals with their older parents. I didn't realize it at the time, but this was red flag #2 (I'll get to why shortly). Finally, after a half hour of waiting and seeing some individuals who came in after us get seated, I went back up to the hostess (same as before) and politely asked when "our name" would be seated. She looked at her list and said that we weren't on it. At that point I looked down at her list, saw our name and pointed at it, telling her it's right there (it seems to have been partially crossed off from when the name above us got crossed off). At that point the hostess tells us that she missed it because she wasn't the one who wrote it... Red flag #3. Instead of leaving like we should have, we then told her that yes, she did write it; we saw her write it and even spelled our name out to her. It goes back and forth, with her implying that we wrote our name on her list when she wasn't around. After insisting that yes she did write it and other patrons in the waiting area also speaking up, she ends up believing us and gets us seated quickly thereafter.

Now that we're seated, the wait continues, but we try to be patient since they recently reopened and are still probably figuring things out. During this wait we figure out what we want. I go with Beef Chow Fun and my wife goes with Moo Shu Pork. When the waitress finally arrives at the table we get our orders in and the wait continues again. Finally, after being seated for an hour and at the restaurant now for an hour and a half, our food arrives. I now expect the food to make up for the horrible experience so far, especially with the raving reviews. We take our first bites, and all I taste is sodium. The red flag from earlier finally making sense. All the food is heavily salted, to the point where if you're young with working taste buds, it's awful. But if you're an old person like almost all the patrons were, it must be the most glorious food ever.

At this point, we get our credit card ready, since we've noticed some tables having issues with their servers taking a long time to pick up their payment. We wait for the waitress to come by again, and when we see her we ask for the bill. Once she comes back with it, we hand her our card, not giving her a chance to leave without our payment. Shortly thereafter we get it back and leave.

So after 2 hours in the House of Wong, we left with a bitter taste in our mouths of...

Single worst customer service experience ever. My son makes $14 an hour and went to get a $15 meal with crunchy undercooked rice and tough chicken. He loves Asian food and is not a big complainer. He got his name "in a red book for credit" but had no idea what that means.

I, his mom, went back to clarify and speak to a manager (whom he asked for 5 minutes prior, but an employee talked to him after a 5 minute wait and gave him this vague name/credit scenario.)

I had to ask 2 times for the manager who then clearly knew how to dismiss every customers unhappiness. He even refused to tell us what the "red book" meant, other than implying it was all some kabal against him and implied there was no such thing as credit anyway. He never got our name so we're clearly not getting our money back even with credit. The owner pointed at what looked to be 10 skinny red binder books, so I'm still uncertain if he was using that as "look at how many people complain and go eff off." I understood maybe 10% of what he was saying and I got the strong sense he knows and uses that to confuse customers into going away.

What shocks me the most is $15 could have made my son go back for the next 40+ years with a retry. That could have been thousands of dollars. Instead, the manager (owner? See photo below of him) clearly never refunds anyone no matter how undercooked the food is and had zero interest in making this right. I'm guessing he taught the employees to "write the name down" to appease people. It appears he's known to ban customers for life, so maybe my son is in the book ban. All is well because he's never going back.

I went 30 years ago once and the host sneezed into their hands (normal for that time lol) then immediately put their snotty hand on the silverware/napkins they brought to my table. That was the only time I've gone because yuck?

The owner knew we live 2 blocks away because I tried to gently point out this is a lifelong would be customer (read: MONEY) and he brushed us off non-verbally as well as physically.

We brought all the uneatten food back as proof, but that seemed to make him angrier. I naively thought it would help prove did not eat all the food THEN try to complain to get his money back because I can only imagine how many restaurants deal with liars.

Even stranger to me was no offer either time to "make it right" by simply recooking his meal. That would have cost the restaurant far less than $15 credit back and losing a customer (and anyone else who reads this and believes me and won't go.)

Very strange. I guess my son got his first experience of terrible 'make it right' customer service. There was an awesome guy in a pink suit waiting for his food who kept saying "write this up online!" so I am, sir. Thanks for the...

17 years ago, I lived in Roseville. We considered HoW to be the definitive Chinese restaurant in the North metro. Since then, we moved away to the East Metro and for a time, there was another restaurant that matched it for quality and taste, though significantly higher priced. We then moved away from the East to the South metro, we have lived here for 10 years and while we have had Chinese food that was very good, it didn’t have that delicious X Factor to it.

Within that time, our favorite place in the East Metro changed owners and changed up their menu, focusing on cutting costs, losing what made it amazing. I was heartbroken. I won’t name it here out of respect for who they used to be.

Last Friday, we found ourselves back in Roseville for a visit. We decided to go to the HoW because it had been years since we had good Chinese food. We were both nervous when we walked in and found that they had completely renovated their interior, focusing on takeaway snd delivery versus dining in. We were really worried that they followed in the footsteps of our beloved East metro restaurant.

We had nothing to fear! The moment we saw our menus, the moment we received our food, and the moment we took our first bites we were catapulted back to 2004. My tastebuds rejoiced. Anyone who has watched Ratatouille knows the reaction of the food critic Ego upon his first taste of His dish. It was amazing. Fantastic. Eating fried rice and sweet and sour pork was so wonderful that I even forgot how old I was, and my husband of 23 years and I felt like we were in our early 20s on a date again. (We are 47)

And the price?!? We both stuffed ourselves silly and had enough for large meals the next day! The bill for Chicken Fried Rice, S and S Pork, chicken wings, chow mein, and banana cream pie for dessert was a whopping $20 for the BOTH of us! To be fair, my husband had the 5-course combo meal and I had enough Chicken Fried rice to feed an army for $7!! It was so mountainous they had to put a silver lid on it to keep it on the plate! The next day, my rice stuffed me and my 21 year old son again!! How’s THAT for value??

If you’re still reading this, a place as special as House of Wong must be praised and im so grateful it got through Covid lockdown, and indeed it’s been with us since 1958. It tastes like it too with no sacrifice in quality whatsoever!

We will be BACK, House of Wong! Some things are worth crossing the Metro for. It is now the definitive Chinese Restaurant in The...