Salem Lowe — Restaurant in Salem

I was brought to Salem Lowe by my grandparents ever since I was a little baby and they were close friends of the previous owners. Decided to go back, and I'm trying my best to compare the food not to my idealized image of what the food used to taste like, but be fair and compare it to other Chinese food in general.

With that said, it was just BAD. I ordered a combo consisting of fried rice, chicken wings, and tender steak. My friend with me ordered General Gau's chicken, lo mein, and mozzarella sticks.

The fried rice tasted burned and was inedible. My friend tried some and identified it as smoke flavor added to it. The pork in the rice was tiny little cubes that could barely be tasted, and there wasn't any ah-so on them.

The tender steak portion was tiny compared to what used to come with the combo plates, and while edible had a strangely sweet flavor to it. I also asked for cheese and rather than bury the cheese to melt inside the pile of tender steak the slice was just lazily tossed on top.

I got chicken fingers by accident instead of the wings, and they did replace them when I requested, but rather than receive two entire chicken wings like I used to, I only received two halves, and neither the chicken wings or chicken fingers were anything out of the ordinary.

My friend's General Gau's chicken was a very strong red color and had a ton of sauce but was overall flavorless. The lo mein was extremely salty and tasted of nothing but soy sauce. I don't really remember the mozzarella sticks but it only came with two and they couldn't have been anything good.

As many other people have mentioned as well, the prices went up considerably as well.

I tried going in with an open mind and telling myself it would be unfair to compare it to the old food, but even compared to other Chinese restaurants around the area it was objectively bad and I will not...

If you buy a local legend then you had better live up to those standards. Instead, they bought a local legend, changed the menu, severely raised prices, changed the ingredients and will most likely not survive another year. Having grown up in the area, Salem Lowe was a destination in itself. You could feed yourself and 2 kids 3 times in the past for what what you charge now. Between the pu pu platter, the combo plate, the Peking ravioli and drinks cost almost $70!! Usually I would kick at the seagulls to keep away from my food but instead, that day, they were fed most of our food as not much of it was fit for human consumption. If the new owners want to fix this, go back to the old menu, go back to the old ingredients, I can see a slight increase in prices but not what they are currently at. Either go back to a winning formula with people lined up or keep the current course and fail. Salem Lowe was amazing, greasy and cheap food not this Chinese bistro that...

So when the new owners first took over I went in as I was told they had the original owner's recipes and not much was going to change. The experience and the food was horrible. Waiting a considerable amount of time, in hopes that things might get better. After reading a few posts saying that it had I dared try for a second time. First of all it's very inconvenient that they shut the phone off with the new ownership. I ordered with a delivery company and wanted to add to the order and wasn't able to do so. After ordering two combination plates at a whopping over $40 I can honestly say I have never had worse food in my life!! I'm not even sure what kind of chicken fingers they were selling but that is certainly not normal. Both combination plates were completely inedible and were thrown in the trash. My son is currently at McDonald's! Please do us all a favor and take the sign down you are not Salem...