LUCKY HOUSE Chinese Cuisine — Restaurant in Surprise

Basic walk in strip mall location with limited open seating options. I entered the location. Queue of 5-7 customers waiting for their food mostly elderly customers. I’m thinking to myself “this is a good sign, elders are usually picky, will complain and won’t return if the food was bad.” I’m excited to try this new place! Cashier was friendly. Wait was was about 15 minutes.

I drive home and the food is still piping hot. I’m salivating 🤤 Then I open the bag and it’s downhill from here. I’m missing my crab puffs! I open the first container of Beef with Broccoli. The broccoli was green and fresh. Unfortunately the beef was mushy no texture and didn’t even seem like I was eating beef. The sauce tasted like your traditional Thanksgiving gravy mixed with fish sauce. Not sure what I was eating. Disappointment starts to set in. Container number two. Lo Mein. It was mush and the chicken was non existent. If you’ve ever left your ramen boiling an extra 15 minutes you get the idea. I’m down to my last container. Orange Chicken. I stick my finger in the sauce give it a taste. Hmm this is nice. Good flavor. However the breading on the chicken was extremely soggy. This would have been MUCH better if the sauce and chicken were in separate containers or eaten there. Call me disappointed $50...

I'm giving two stars because our server was great. Other than that I'm guessing the food must be reheated, wondering if its because we came in just before 8:00 pm? I got the orange chicken and it had a weird taste, they said they had run out of fried rice and apparently weren't willing to make fresh fried rice so our options were white rice or lo mien, my husband asked for half rice and half lo mien but the waitress said she wasn't sure they could do that, apparently not cause they brought him only the white rice, our food was out in less than 5 minutes so I'm guessing they must have had it already served in the containers which is why the couldn't change it. Everything came out in plastic containers including the water (which they did not charge us for) the sweet and sour pork was a little crispy but my orange chicken tasted soggy, noodles where meh. I was hoping for better, I dont know of any good Chinese restaurants in the area, we should have known by how empty it was when we walked in but gave them the benefit of the doubt. If someone just made decent Chinese food they would do very well. Also our fortune was kinda negative...

Finally something better than Panda Express. Its a shame when you have to stack up every Chinese spot up against a national chain, but its what we are left with. Most Chinese food places that dont have corporate scrutiny on them become inconsistent and have random sauce, most of the time too runny because they get lazy. I've had Lucky House 4 times so far and its been pretty good, the last one though the Kung Pao Chicken was overloaded with peanuts and not so much chicken, still taste ok. The other 3 times were good.

Edit: Food has declined. Keeps my theory alive that Chinese food is decent when a place first opens and they grow lazy as time goes by. Last time I went, I asked for extra extra spicy, was on the level of medium Pace hot sauce. Sauce on my entree was thin. Crab rangoons undercooked and soggy. They still had the covid plexiglass hanging from the ceiling as if it does something. Staff has the personality of a corpse but still keeps the tip jar out by the register for those that feel obligated to put something in it for no good...