Chinatown Garden — Restaurant in Washington

The only good thing about the experience? That it's finished. I recently dined here, and the experience left much to be desired. We were seated in an unusual upstairs space that felt more like a closed dance club than a restaurant. The restaurant was crowded, thus we waited in line for 40 minutes just to be seated in this empty dance hall that had been arranged as dining room in a couple of minutes. The atmosphere was unpleasant, with harsh lighting and a lack of windows, creating an uncomfortable ambiance. The staff seemed indifferent and unhelpful, and even simple questions were met with annoyance.

To add to the disappointment, we were served in plastic cups, adding to the overall lackluster atmosphere. The timing of the dishes was completely off, with my appetizer arriving significantly earlier than my girlfriend's (but still 45 minutes after the order), that arrived with my main dish. But, ta-daan, my main dish was not what I ordered. When I brought this to the waiter's attention, he seemed annoyed and attempted to give my incorrect dish to another customer, on the next table, just because she was seating alone and she was in a rush. Given that she did not ordered that dish too, the waiter seemed clearly disappointed: all the customers were a real deception that day.

The low point came when we decided to pay for the food but refused the mandatory gratuity. I'm usually happy to leave the gratuity, when my experience is pleasant, the service is good and they make me feel welcome. Here I only found long waiting time, bad food thrown on the table with a disappointed face, a funereal atmosphere and plastic cups. The staff's reaction was shocking—they shouted at us in front of other customers, threatened to call the police, and used offensive language. Facing our decision to pay only for the food, the finally replied "Then pay, go to hell and don't come back". It's sad to see that they did not understand that even if they were paying me, and not the opposite, I'll put my feet back in there.

It's disheartening when a restaurant fails on so many levels.. but this can barely be called...

We almost missed this place when looking for lunch. It was quiet inside and not many patrons at the time, probably because it was around 3 pm. It was a bit on the warm side for comfort so I guess they're trying to save on their electric bill, but it's not quite ideal to try and enjoy a meal when you're already uncomfortably hot.

The food we ordered was, mostly, very good. The beef and broccoli was bland as if everything had just been steamed. The Kung Pao chicken was completely devoid of vegetables, yet still fairly good. But a noodle dish and the General Tso's Chicken were really good, though the Tso's had no discernable pepper to it.

-1 star for the food which was either really good or just not good at all. Hit or miss food isn't what you want at a restaurant.

The service, while not overtly rude (though in the South where we're from it would be considered unacceptably rude) the service was "cold" and all-business, no-hospitality. It's as if they really didn't care if you were there or not.

Of the 4 dishes we ordered, 2 came out about 10 minutes after we ordered with no explanation. We stopped the person who delivered them and asked about the other 2. All she muttered was "soon" and quickly walked away. Now, I'm all for getting my food as hot and fresh as possible, so if the other 2 dishes take a bit more time to prepare it should be expected that your server details that instead of walking away with a half-hearted "soon".

-1 more star for service that could use a lot of work. (I'm THIS close to knocking it down 1 more star, but seeing as what we consider "rude" is apparently acceptable behavior in DC I'll leave the stars alone.)

It's not hard to be friendly to people, especially when they're spending money at your business. Considering we had literally hundreds of choices you'd think a more welcoming attitude would've been front-and-center. Sadly, no.

Overall, it wasn't a bad experience and the good dishes were about as good as it gets. But with the hit-or-miss nature of their dishes and the robotically cold service I can't muster more...

It has better ambiance than many other Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. It was disappointing that the posted menu at the door draws you in, but it does not apply when you sit inside! The posted menu has separate pricing for lunch and dinner. We went for lunch. We were handed a pricier menu. When I inquired and wanted to order from the posted menu, I was very curtly told that the posted menu was a take-out menu, it was not available for sitting inside. Let's think, would the visitors walking around looking for a place to eat, be looking for a take-out menu or sit inside menu? Typically take-out menu is seen online. So we thought it was well designed trick to draw you in.

The service was non-challan and rude side. The inside menu had 'packaged deals' for 2, 3, or 4 people. We were 2 so we could pick 2 out of some 8 entrees, but there was only 1 entrée for us vegetarians. So we asked the waiter if could we get the other entrée from the vegetarian menu? He very rudely said that it was not possible! No reasoning would work with him. He very rudely told us to order from the vegetarian menu. Fine, so I asked him if he would recommend any dish from the vegetarian menu that was special of the restaurant. No help there. He actually got irritated, we were wasting his time. He rudely told us to pick whatever we wanted.

So other than halfway decent ambiance compared to many other Chinese restaurants in Chinatown there was not much going for this...