Szechuan House — Restaurant in Timonium

Bad experience and mediocre food! I usually go to get authentic Chinese food at a couple of other restaurants because the food is always fixed fresh; serving size is plentiful, and the food is hot, tasty, and the customer service is awesome! But I decided to try this place, despite the poor reviews but I should have listened to my gut.

The food tasted horrible, and the customer service was even worse! Never again! This place can’t even fix fried rice correctly! A so-called “authentic “ Chinese restaurant that cannot even cook fried rice is like an Italian restaurant that serves spaghetti without pasta sauce. It just doesn’t happen. Well, it happened in this case because I was served fried rice with NO onions, NO carrots, NO peas and NO eggs! (See pic) …Just white rice, barely covered with soy sauce, that tasted like bland, uncooked grain rice! By the way, they messed up my order twice! And as expected, did not offer a refund for uneaten food, even though it was they who got the order wrong. They “corrected” it by giving me something called fried rice but certainly isn’t fried rice (maybe they’re cutting costs…idk?). But what I do know is they did not give me the correct order the first time. I ordered, carry out, Schezwan lamb and a side of fried rice instead of steamed rice. (When I got home, I had a large fried rice with lamb or beef in it (yet they charged me the full price for Lamb Schezwan, which is what I ordered). But when I called back (this is the third time by now), and tried to explain that I did not order a fried rice dish, I got push back. I ordered Schezwan lamb and a SIDE of fried rice. Instead of just saying I’m sorry this lady actually argued with me that that’s what I ordered. Really?!? So I insisted that I have my order made as ordered and I would bring back the fried rice. My son went to pick up my order and brought it back to me. Lo and behold, it was wrong again! This time I think they did this on purpose because and gave me Schezwan Lamb but friend rice with nothing in but a tiny bit of soy sauce (see pic). Lamb was horrible too! Perhaps they do this when they get mad with you for challenging them about what you ordered. Then “Marry” tried to tell me that’s how fried rice is cooked and that’s the one I ordered like I didn’t know what I ordered. I don’t like dealing with liars. I never ordered that and it doesn’t say it comes without those items on the menu so I think it’s a reasonable expectation to expect to get fried rice made as it usually is made.

I really can’t stand people like that. Perhaps they are cutting cost or something but I don’t like it because when I pay the full price for something I want that meal and not a substitute and I want the food that I asked for cooked correctly. Don’t get mad at me and then give me something I did not ask for for the second time because I complained.

Already the food tastes mediocre, but to argue with me about what I know I ordered and then don’t even offer to make it right is not a way to get a return customer or get customers who actually listen to reviews. No problem . I’ll take my business elsewhere, and I’ll tell my family and friends not to patronize you and to go Kung Fu 12, Asian Kebob, or China Moon if they actually want tasty, authentic Chinese food with better service. And if they want great Japanese food and excellent service, go to Sushi Ichiban in Towson! Some people appreciate that you chose to spend your hard-earned money in their restaurant, so an effort should be made to ensure the person’s order is right, and if not, efforts are made to get it right. If you can’t get it right, refund...

I AM SO MAD!!! First to the owners: What really helps a family-owned, non-chain Asian restaurant succeed on the York Road corridor is not responding to reviews of your business in such an unprofessional way. What also helps is serving excellent Americanized or countryside food with good service. Now the review! So some roads, you think you know them. You drive them a hundred times, and they're just asphalt and streetlights. But every now and then, a new place opens up, a new door on a familiar street, and you find yourself pulled in by a curious kind of dread. You think, why not? And that's where the horror begins. We should have known. The signs were there from the start. The kind of signs you only see in hindsight, when the slow-motion car wreck is already in your rearview mirror. The decor was a hodgepodge of broken promises—tables that didn't match, like mismatched gravestones, and on each one, a solitary cup of straws, as if to say, You'll need a dozen more, pilgrim, before this is over. The windows were smeared with the grime of a thousand unspoken nights, eyes that refused to see the light. When they handed us the menus, they weren't just menus; they were leather-bound relics. I opened mine, and flakes of something old, something dried, fell out, a silent harbinger of what was to come. A tiny plate of stale rock-hard wontons followed, petrified bones waiting for a lick of sauce—not that the sauces would help. The duck sauce was an old sweet, sickly smear, and the mustard, a watery yellow confession of defeat. The vegetable egg rolls came next. I bit into mine, and there it was—the cold spot. A core of profound, unholy chill surrounded by a piping hot exterior. Like a lie. You chew on it, and it tells you that something is very wrong, but by then, it’s too late. We should have run. We should have thrown open the door and fled into the welcoming neon glow of Fuji San, Fusion, Green Leaf, Miku Sushi and Steakhouse, Sonny Lee's Hunan Taste, or Umi Sake. All of which we have eaten at for years and loved… but we sadly stayed. We watched as our entrees arrived, bathed in a theatrical light meant to hide the terrible truth. The dishes themselves were simple, but in their simplicity lay a kind of cosmic horror. The vegetables had a creeping brown rot at the edges, and the white rice, once a thing of purity, carried the foul stench of mothballs, a whisper of graves long forgotten. My fried rice, for which I had paid extra, was just brown rice with nothing in it, no veggies, no meat, just a blank canvas of bleakness. The sauces were a pale, gelatinous slurry, tasting of nothing but despair and a sickening amount of corn starch. As we sat there, feeling the poison take root, the hostess passed by, cloaked in a cloud of perfume so overpowering it had more flavor than the food. It was meant to mask the stench of a place that should not be, but it only amplified the corruption. Now, as I write this, I can feel a cold fist of dread tightening in my gut, counting down the minutes until the inevitable reckoning of sweaty toilet time. I am disgusted. Not just by the food, but by the shameful, unholy pact they have made with mediocrity....

Certifiably DISGUSTING and a WASTE OF ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY pretty much sums up my Fiance's and my first and definitely LAST experience with this place. To top it off, customer service, for those who want to order carry out, is non-existent at best! Prepare to just stand at the front counter and be ignored for a good five to ten minutes, by a group of employees standing directly in front of you.

My Fiance and I had just moved to the area and wanted to find a great Chinese restaurant. Based on the positive google reviews, we decided to check out Szechuan House. It was a Monday evening, around 7:30pm; way before closing time. Although it was raining, we decided to drive to the restaurant, so we could learn our way around the area. Once we reached the front counter/cashier desk, we found ourselves standing there for at least seven minutes before one of the three people behind the counter acknowledged us. They were too busy closing out their checks from the entire day, to be bothered to greet us.

Since we've never experienced any Chinese restaurant screwing up Sesame Chicken or Orange Chicken, we decided to order those two dishes to go. Surprisingly, the food came out pretty quickly; which really could go either way in terms of a "good" thing or a "bad" thing. But we chose to perceive it as a good thing. The thought that they'd redeemed themselves for their non-existent customer service only lasted as long as it took us to get back home and open the containers, roughly 20 minutes.

The batter, for both chicken dishes, had the exact same taste and consistency of soggy, water-soaked bread pudding. YUCK! How we were able to differentiate between the two dishes was with the rotten orange peels and the sesame seeds floating at the bottom of the containers. Unfortunately, we can't say that they were floating in the sauce that should've been on the chicken. There was half an inch of water from the soggy, steamed broccoli, which they had strategically placed under the chicken, so you wouldn't see it if you were to check to make sure the food was correct and to give the illusion that the containers were overstuffed with the food you actually ordered. We didn't order their Chix w/broccoli dish, so why did they fill up both containers half-way with broccoli?! What a scam! That's why the food came out so quickly!

Fortunately, we found a great Chinese carry-out, that also delivers. Their food has consistently been very good and their prices are extremely reasonable. They're located on Scott Adam Rd in Cockeysville. Since they use plastic to-go containers with clear lids, you can see exactly what you bought. If broccoli is used as a garnish, there are maybe two or three small, crispy pieces on top of a container overstuffed with the food...