China Ann — Restaurant in San Diego

the love of my life, and our three kids went here for dinner.

we ordered around $60 worth of food. the young lady behind the counter was friendly and helpful, got us seated and took our order as expected.

we ate our food and when I went to pay I was greeted by a young man.

he told me my bill was around $60 but he added an %18 gratuity. bringing the bill to over $80, because there were five of us.

a family, not a large group, this is not a high end establishment and we were the only dine in patrons.

I asked if the policy was posted, as I did not see it on the menu, nor posted anywhere conspicuous.

he said he would remove it.

the food was okay, not great, the service was okay, not great and my family stacked our plates and cleaned our own table.

then on our way out the young man verbally accosted me demanding a tip. he continued to be abrasive and demand a tip. I'm sorry, a tip or gratuity is above and beyond, you get paid to do a job and if you go above or beyond I tip amazingly. if you accost me and make demands I won't be bullied.

my tip, don't be pushy and add your own %18 gratuity to a tab. be courteous and accept what people can afford to tip in this bad economy.

I handed the young lady a $10 and will never dine here again.

the young lady deserves 5 stars. she was kind...

I called in to make delivery order and was blown away by how they tried to rip me off at 3:00 pm and how very rude they were. He refused to give me lunch order, was trying to tell me the only way to get food was individual orders! 49.00 for one person at an ok anywhere place is outrageous but for this place in a strip mall for lunch is crazy!! He then told me “ call Door Dash, we don’t do orders under 20.00 “ hung up on me! The rudest man I have encountered in literally years. Btw I have ordered from them many times so idk why he was lying , trying to take advantage of a crippled person on a fixed income and act like this was a 4 star establishment?!! It’s a long way from being 4 star I doubt if ppl would even rate them with the poor service and rude behavior. I do not recommend China Ann to anyone at this point. I called Panda Express got the exact same order , paid Door Dash and it was more than half as much for what they were trying to get me to pay. It’s the same quality without the rudeness...

Egg foo young is tough to find. China Ann presented a poor example of egg foo young.

A typical egg foo young is egg, bean sprouts and carrots for the base, then any meat or veggie add-on will bulk out the dish. Unfortunately, the China Ann folk are adding some sort of thickener (I suspect rice flour) to the egg mix that does not help in a positive way.

The gravy from China Ann is great; the veggie egg foo young is dense, grainy from the thickener, and extremely heavy. I became spoiled on great egg foo young from Mandarin Dynasty, that Hillcrest Chinese restaurant by the Normal St. DMV. Closed these many years, I have been on a quest for egg foo young since.

Do yourself a favor: when in need for egg foo young, at all costs, AVOID China Ann. Your tongue and stomach...