Kai's — Restaurant in Town of Ulster

TLDR; if you like salty food and you're not picky about Chinese food, give it a try.

Staff is attentive for a take out place and friendly. The son/grandson is adorable and a delight. They definitely do mostly takeout as there are only two booths available. There is a restroom, though we did not use it.

The food was OK. Relatively standard American Chinese takeout; IYKYK the distinction.

The main issue is that everything meant to be savory is too salty. You lose the flavors of the beef, oyster sauce, hoisin, umami etc. in all the salt. So if you like salty food, this place is good for you.

The beef we ordered was velveted nicely. Perhaps a tad too long, but still better than undervelveted. It's too bad the flavor of the beef and sauce was lost in the salt.

The General Tso's chicken sauce is excellent, and the crunch on the freshly fried breading was good (we ate in, so it didn't sit). However, this was overshadowed by the quality of the fried chicken as it was mostly breading on a lot of the pieces.

I wasn't expecting deep fried dumplings but they were OK. The dim sum (siumai) was better, though also very salty. We did not end up liking the szechuan dumplings at all. They seemed undercooked and weirdly mushy, and served with too much salty peanut sauce that drowned out any flavor the dumpling filling...

Very, very sad to say this: Kai is no longer cooking. He's no longer there. Apparently, it was his genius that made this place something very special. Now it's pretty standard.

I'm leaving the old review of Kais's when Kai's was Kai's. I can't bare to take it down.

---OLD REVIEW---- Kai's is almost perfect including the super nice people and low prices. This is 5 stars for sure. It's the sort of undiscovered gem that you dream of finding. All the sauces I've tried so far have been extremely good (and i've tried a lot). Lot's of mediocre Chinese places in the area are oddly timid about flavor but Kai's is fearless with garlic and Szechuan -- full of flavor.

When you walk in, you're expecting a standard Chinese joint but the owner told me he tasted over 200 sauces before choosing the recipes for his. He did; you can tell. It tastes like someone cares about it. He cares a lot about everything here, you can tell from the great vibe and great service. Without a doubt, my roast pork chow fun was the best I've had including multiple Chinatowns -- the pork was perfect, freakishly perfect.

IGNORE ANY REVIEW BEFORE 2011, THEY'RE FOR A DIFFERENT PLACE. All the review for...

i tried this place out tonight based on the good feedback i seen here on google, and it was as good as everyone says. the food and sauces have flavor. real flavor. some chinese food tastes like flavored water, but not the case here. we got chicken in garlic sauce, beef & broccoli in garlic sauce, some egg rolls, and some bbq beef on a stick and it was all top notch. no grizzly grossness, no questionable tastes. the staff was very friendly and chatted me up while i waited. i can't...