Joyful House — Restaurant in Saline

Joyful House is hands down the best Chinese place in Saline. I've eaten at a few places around town and this one beats them all. Best of all, the food is consistent. I've eaten here at least a dozen times and the food is always delicious.

I remember Joyful House when it was a larger restaurant, complete with a buffet. The restaurant has since downsized, with a fair number of tables and a pleasant eating environment. Most tables are set for two, and as a family of seven we do have to combine some tables but it isn't too much of an issue.

My go-to dish is chicken lo mein, but I'll often get chicken with mixed vegetables as well. I judge every place by how well they make these two dishes, and Joyful House really nails both. The lo mein always has tender chicken with the perfect amount of flavor; never too salty or too bland. The chicken with mixed vegetables has the perfect variety of vegetables, and the sauce is outstanding. The rice is always perfectly cooked as well. Tonight I ordered a lo mein with hot-and-sour soup, fried pork dumplings and crab rangoons. Everything was delicious, and for around $25, it was a great meal.

I've yet to find a restaurant in Saline or even Ann Arbor that makes better Chinese than Joyful House. I'm confident in saying that no matter what you order,...

I placed a pick up order tonight was highly disappointed. It was so expensive for a small amount of low quality food. I ordered chicken lo mein and while it was flavorful and tasted good. It did not taste like lo mein. It was like a garlic noodle dish. I love garlic and it did taste good but not what I was expecting when ordering lo mein. We also ordered orange chicken and sweet and sour chicken and we were so disappointed with the quality of the chicken. It was hard and stringy inside, not plump and juicy like our normal chinese takeout location. The orand and sweet and sour sauces were ok nothing special. The egg rolls we ordered were flavorful but not crunchy. It seemed like the egg roll wrapper was too thick and there was not enough cabbage to go with the meat. The amount of meat was great, I just wish there was more vegetables to go with it. It was $54 for 3 meals which is crazy to me. I normally order from tecumseh's oriental sizzling and am able to get 4 larger, better quality meals for $45. My family wanted to try something new but I doubt we...

The woman who waited on us, appeared to be owner, was one of the rudest waitresses I have ever encountered. She seemed angry and frustrated, that we interrupted her day. My wife, and I, became afraid to ask for anything in fear of what response we would receive. The breading on General Tso's chicken was doughy, and sauce was not good. I typically order Spicy Ginger and Garlic Pork at Chinese restaurants, but on this day I really did not feel like Garlic. So, I ordered Mongolian Pork. What I received was GARLIC Pork. This was so full of Garlic, hardly any onion, and just absolutely terrible!!! As we were leaving, she says "was everything ok?". Once again, for fear of possible angry response, I said "it was ok". Then, said to my wife as we stepped out of the door, I'm lucky I didn't just get struck by lightning, for lying.

Btw...at a table next to us, a woman ordered Almond Chicken, and breading was so doughy, she only ate her rice then covered her plate with a napkin, as to give respect...