Lin's Garden — Restaurant in Wake Forest

tl;dr Lin’s Garden doesn’t know how to treat customers with basic respect.

I’ve lived in the Triangle area for roughly 25 years at this point and I’ve eaten at more restaurants than I can remember. Since I was a child Chinese cuisine was always at the top of my list of favorites. I’ve moved to several different areas in the Triangle and have eaten at many Chinese restaurants. Some have been amazing, some have been ok. I really can’t say that I’ve actively disliked any of them. However, Lin’s Garden has broken that streak and it wasn’t the food that did it.

I got a to-go order including a couple of orders of the battered and fried sweet and sour pork. We’ve eaten this a million times. Sometimes it’s a little overcooked which is fine. When I went to Lin’s garden though this S&S pork was REALLY overcooked. I never like to complain but none of us could eat it. It was hard enough to break a window or poke a hole in an air mattress. Fine, no problem I thought, mistakes happen. I called the restaurant and politely asked the person answering the phone if they cook re-cook the sweet and sour pork. The young person who answered the phone said yes, but please bring back the other ones. Sure!

Literally 10 seconds later they call me back. I hear a woman yelling in the background in Chinese and the young guy sheepishly tells me that they can’t re-cook them. The lady (who is the one yelling I guessed) said that she cooked them personally, they were perfect and they would not recook them.

I really was speechless for a second…. I never thought a reaction like that would be possible…. Annoyed, I said well can I get my money back? He said yes but I need to bring the lava rocks in.

So for the second time that night I drove 25 minutes back to the restaurant, gave the S&S pork to a sheepish lady while the cook (I assume) was in the very back of the restaurant still yelling (I assume saying negative things about me, but who knows). I got my money back, told them I wouldn’t be back and left.

The moral of this overly long narrative is that mistakes don’t bother me… we are all human and everybody makes them. It’s how you react to your mistake that tells me whether I will bring my repeat business back to you. Ask any of the other restaurants in the area that I have spent thousands at over the years. You really need to teach the cook basic politeness and respect to your customers or you won’t have any left...

So, like another reviewer, my wife and I saw the fantastic reviews and decided to give it a try. I ordered off of DoorDash and the order was picked up by my dasher within 12 minutes. While some may consider this to be a nice thing, don’t all of you (any one who is reading this) think that fresh food being prepared and ready in under 15 minutes is a little bit suspect? Well, it was. The food arrived in another 12-15 minutes and was still hot. That was a plus, however, so many negatives have put this place in the red for us. Firstly, the General Tso’s Chicken had several flavor options, and the one that I picked (medium) and the one that my wife picked (mild) were completely identical. The chicken was perhaps the most disappointing part of our meal, with every piece being drier than the next.....somehow. The fried rice was bright yellow as if you rubbed the Simpsons’ Maggie’s head and dandruff came off. Not only that, but the crab rangoons were sickeningly sweet — so much so to the point that I’m wondering if they actually added sugar. You could’ve put these things atop a cake, covered them in buttercream frosting, and you wouldn’t have known the difference. I don’t even feel like continuing. This place isn’t worth the money. Nor is it a 4.6 star fast food experience....

There’s no great Chinese take-out in Wake Forest. I’ve decided they’re all mediocre. I had thought, and still believe a little, that Lin’s Garden has the potential to be really good. But they disappointed me tonight. The egg roll was not good at all. It was so greasy and simply did not taste good. I got an order of crab Rangoon that was pretty much inedible. The wonton wrappers should be crisp and crunchy. These were anything but. It was as if they had already been fried once, allowed to sit out for a day, and then dipped in hot grease just long enough to heat them up again. The kung pao chicken was way too salty. The beef and broccoli was fair. The only thing good was an order of pork lo mein. I really like the family that operates Lin’s Garden. They are so friendly, and their (what sounds to be) American-born sons are so great at handling the order taking duties, I just hate it for them that they don’t seem to appreciate what it could do for their business to ensure they are preparing only the highest quality dishes for their customers. There’s no way I would believe they would serve to their own visiting relatives, the quality of food we received tonight. Wake Forest is wide open for one of the several Chinese take-outs in the area to step up and become known...