Fortune Gourmet — Restaurant in Virginia

Here is my experience with this restaurant. It's a simple, mom and pop type of restaurant that offers carryout and is not really designed to be eaten in. Although technically you could (assuming after Covid). There are two tables there - however one that was occupied by the owner - so if he is using it all the time, perhaps there is only one usable table at a time. I think it was the owner who took my order and he was generally pretty friendly.

After I brought the food home, I thought the portions were pretty good and decent. Although the white rice was missing, which I normally expect from a Chinese restaurant. Not sure if that was normal or they forgot. But anyway, here comes the real test, how was the food? How did it taste? I wanted to like this place but unfortunately, the food was not to my liking. The dishes were absolutely drenched with sauce, I mean, really soaked in a thick-ish type of bland Asian sauce. The sauce was so bland and "generic", like it came straight out of a factory (which it probably did), without any "zing". (To the owners: please do NOT add MSG for "zing"). Two of the dishes I ordered were also very generic. The only difference was that one dish had meat in it and the other did not. I think this is pretty sloppy cooking and extremely uncreative. Each dish should be unique and have a different taste. They not only tasted the same, pretty much, but they looked the same too.

So, I could also imagine other dishes on their menu tasting pretty much the same too, except with a difference in meat. The sauce used in these two dishes is also very ho-hum, there was nothing exciting about it, and probably had a lot of salt and MSG, as I gained over 1.5 pounds the next day. You see, I like my sauce thickness to be almost like water, not too thick, and have a very strong soy sauce type of taste (with maybe some oil), cooked over high heat. I don't know what type of heat they used, but in my opinion, did not have the "high heat" taste. It's a special taste ... and if they did cook it over high heat, which I doubt, then I couldn't taste it.

Next the General Tso's chicken was also drenched in too much sauce. In addition, some of the chicken was hard and the coating on the chicken was a bit skimpy. Now, I don't want super-breaded General Tso's chicken either, which I detest because then I would be eating more breading than chicken... but the chicken at this restaurant could use a bit more breading. I guess the taste of it was average but again way too much sauce (which probably contains way too much sugar).

Lastly the chicken lo mein was the best out of all these. It tasted OK but it was nothing spectacular. The best thing was it wasn't drenched in sauce.

I really wanted to like this restaurant, and it does have some good points, but on the food and the food taste, which is paramount for a restaurant, I have to give it pretty low marks. I hate saying that but that is my honest opinion. I hope the owners can take my comments as constructive criticisms and use them for the improvement on their food. If they implement my suggestions, perhaps they will get more business.

I have added some pictures of the food. While you can clearly see the sauce on the food at the top, there is a lot more sauce sitting in the bowl that may be hard to see because the sauce is dark and the bowl is dark, but if you look closely, you'll see...

For the first order they messed up, blamed it online ordering blah blah blah...fine I let that go... I order again and another mess up...causes me to have to drive back. Took a break for a while and order again....this one was fine because it was a simple order of lo mein and soup. Today I ordered a lunch special and lo mein....I ended up getting fried rice.

I call and the guy says to me that he entered it wrong and would send the right order out. I have been waiting for over an hour. I call back because I have to leave so I can't wait any longer. The guy tells me this time it's the computers fault. He then says to me....mam you've never ordered from us before.....WTF how are you going to tell a repeated paying customer that???

Everytime you order from them they give you another menu. I have kept all 8 menus AND I have an account online that shows my purchase history.

Asked for a refund and he says "fine" and hangs up.

Needless to say customer service sucks and not worth...

From our small family to yours. We’ve been customers of your for years now and have had different views off and on over a long time . Mostly against one place NOT near here. They’ve been lacking . I think one of them did pass away during Covid. Grandma age.. (sad) 1 left cooking. Your winning.. To Us.

We appreciate your hustle. We see the dedication and sacrifices you guys make or have made over the years. Literally ..Not kidding.. You guys go above and beyond sometimes and you don’t need to or shouldn’t. Most places don’t.

Chicken Egg Foo was great tonight ! Thanks

You’re one of a kind in the area. We hope others will appreciate you as much as we have.

It’s not always about the best , it’s about who has consistent quality. Love ya....