Chinese Taste — Restaurant in South Salt Lake

The place is relatively new, the food was tasty. I mean no disrespect when I say this, if you're some ignorant person grew up with breaded fried chicken tossed in sweet and sour sauce, I suggest Panda Express, they do just fine if you're looking for American "Chinese" food.

I've been to China 3 times in my life and the most recent was the summer of 2017. During the three visits I've been to 7 provinces, plus Hong Kong. In my opinion, places like Chinese Taste, Mom's Kitchen and Chef Gao in Salt Lake City is pretty damn close to the real deal for North Eastern Chinese food. It is 5 star when it comes to food.

When the place first opened, it did not have proper English menus. To be fair, the clientele mostly consists of Chinese immigrants, with your sprinkles of Salt Lakers looking for an authentic taste. There are poorly translated statements on the wall that make no-sense to to us Anglophones. This does add a sense of authenticity as when I visited Beijing with my wife we saw some menus that had overt badly translated nonsense also. They now have a western friendly menu for those who don't even know what real Chinese food is. But I suggest you ask the staff for tips on things that they do well, like: the Diced Dry Spice Chicken is just fantastic, the "Chinese Burgers" were really great, their BBQ was pretty legit. They have dishes that immigrant Chinese people really like, there are a lot of patrons really happy with those.

The service is a different style. We Americans are used to a more attentive style where staff watch us like a hawk anticipating our every need. If you been to Asia, you'll know service is depend on your assertiveness. Japan for example have service buttons on tables when you're in need of service, and until you press they won't come around. Here in Chinese Taste, if you need a refill or something you may need to wave the staff to come over. They will come and provide you fabulous service.

Majority of the patrons are immigrants eating food they're used to and they expect service like how it is back home. Just know this you'll have a good time.

Overall, go to the place, it is good. Ask for suggestions if the English makes no sense on the menu, or this isn't the Americanized Chinese dishes you're used to. and...

Ordered chicken potstickers, steamed buns with BBQ pork, Shanghai dumplings, and chicken lo mein. It was okay, but only the lo mein actually tasted fresh. So I'll start there.

The chicken lo mein was delicious, slightly sweet with classic flavors and thin cut chicken which tasted independently flavored and cooked. Worked very well and started our meal off in a good place. But lo mein, to me, is not a star dish. It's not a reason why I would travel to a sit down restaurant, and so it can not carry this review up from just being okay.

The pot stickers were fried crispy on the outside and soft and tasteless on the inside. The provided dipping sauce came out in a to-go style lidded plastic container, and tasted like soy sauce with water. The weren't offensive, but not good either. Definitely the low point.

So one hit, one miss, but next up was the reason we came. The Shanghai dumpling, or soup dumplings. This was such a missed opportunity, because the ones that were in tact were good! But of the 8 that come with an order, only 3 actually still had soup in them. The rest were cracked on the bottom and let all of that deliciousness out, completely defeating the purpose of ordering these dumplings. This leads me to believe that this food is frozen well in advance and thawed in the steamer. That's not the end of the world usually, but in this case it damaged the food too much.

The BBQ buns tasted pretty good, but did not contain enough BBQ pork for my taste and didn't have the light airiness that these buns should have coming out of the steamer. That said, they tasted good enough, and as hard to find as this type of bun can be, I'd have them again.

So plusses and minuses takes me...

Chinese Taste in South Salt Lake is one of those "blink and you miss it" restaurants, being easy to overlook right by Utah's Chinatown. But, it is very much worth finding this place. This has quickly become one of my favorite Chinese restaurants I've ever been to. Chinese Taste not only has those Chinese-American favorites most are accustomed with, but a good selection of more authentic dishes...dare I say they serve the best General Tso's/Tao's chicken I've had in the Wasatch Front. Especially when you order it as part of a lunch or dinner combination plate which has great value. I also very much enjoy their cheese wontons - nice and crispy and the sweet and sour sauce has just the right amount of sweet and tang for my tastes. This past week I also tried the numbing spicy beef noodles dish, which I enjoyed very much. Between the flavor of the broth with the noodles and the cabbage served with the beef makes a great dish for a cold day or whenever. I will definitely see myself coming back to try some of the other dishes they offer; both Chinese-American as well as their more...