China City — Restaurant in Whidbey Island

05/16/24 - Tried them again in Freeland. After waiting at front desk a while, we just went into Bar area, which was almost full. Bar was very noisy, but we stayed there on expectation of faster service vs. restaurant area. 2 different bar servers chose not to remove dirty cloth napkin and table cleaning rag from our table until was asked them to do that after appetizer arrived. Appetizer and dinner actually came out pretty fast, and BBQ Pork was very good, but not enough mustard or sesame seeds. The Almond Chicken simply wasn't as good as in the past [did not take left-overs home]. Other than fairly fast food arrival, rest of service was slow and not very professional -- e.g., leaving dirty napkin and cleaning rag on the table, not bringing any silverware until after food was brought to the table. Primary server took payment machine away while I was still contemplating an appropriate tip...I didn't argue. Overall, not likely we'll return to this location.

A Year Ago - Really liked both China City locs in past. This time Freeland was "not so much".

Great food items: Almond Chicken (Gravy style, which we love). Excellent! Egg Rolls BBQ Pork, Mustard & toasted Sesame seeds

Not so much: Coconut Shrimp on app plate - zero coconut flavor. Sweet & Sour Coconut Shrimp entree same as above & extremely disappointing! (sauce was good, but only served as a dip) Chicken Wings - not just flavorless, odd flavor

Service: Woman behind hostess station chose to ignore us for quite a while. Just as I was about to walk out, a different hostess came along acknowledged us & seated us. (wife wanted to stay) Waitress brought one wrong entree. (may have been due to young waiter who initially took our order?) Waitress wearing scientifically useless surgical mask making it virtually impossible to understand most of what she said. (No problem with science deniers chosing to wear ineffective surgical masks, except when negative impact on me, the paying customer) My 2nd Bombay Saphire Tonic (bar out of Tanqueray) took a long time, then wasn't right. Took a different waitress (flagged down after a long time, had given up on ours) to take it back & replace with correct drink. Positive Note: Flagged 2nd waitress actually waited while I tasted to verify remade drink ok! Great service by this lady! Bill had the incorrectly served item on it, but had to wait a long time for someone to ask about it. Then another long wait for corrected bill.

Likely will not return to Freeland store, even if staying in Langley area.

Future visits will be limited to Oak Harbor loc, as long as that store is a...

We showed up Monday evening to enjoy some Chinese food with our friends at 8:05PM and we were denied service. We asked them why and they said that it was too late. Their hours of service says they close at 8:30PM. We kindly asked the 2 ladies at the desk if the could please seat us, they once again said, "we cannot". We were offered takeout and we told them we were from out of town and wanted to sit down and eat. They once again said, "Sorry we cannot". They were kind enough to let us use the restrooms before leaving. Whats really unfortunate is our friends left a review this evening as well and the owner replied that they are not even open on Monday's and they do not know how this could happen? They are clearly open on Monday's as posted here in Google, and were were clearly inside the restaraunt during hours of operation, and denied service. So the owners can see their posted hours of service I have provided a screenshot for them to see from their website and Google. Posting an untruthful statement they they are not open on Monday's and do not know how we could have experienced this is not truthful. They know and we all know they are open on Monday's. After this experience we will not be returning here ever again! Very unfortunate experience and poor...

The food was amazing. The atmosphere was just incredible! The beautiful art and serene setting were wonderful. We were told it would be a 15-20 minute wait because the kitchen was backed up with take out orders. We were seated in the bar to wait. The bar was half empty. After waiting at least 10-15 minutes, the server never acknowledged us, so we ordered at the bar. The hostess came and got us shortly thereafter and seated us. We were assured the drinks would be brought to our table. We waited another 10-15 minutes and asked our server. A while later, my husband went to the bar himself, and they said we were on the list, and it wouldn't be long now. Fifteen minutes after that, we had our soup, but we still didn't have our drinks. My husband went back again and finally got them. He ordered a bottle of beer, and I got the world's worst mojito. It had no mint except for the garnish, and it tasted like a canned, pre-made, gross mint water and rum mixture, with very little sugar or lime. Yuck. Not worth the price or the wait. The food was really good. The combo dinner was $25 a person, and included: hot and sour soup, 2 egg rolls, 4 pot stickers, fried rice, almond chicken, and...