The Dynasty

Very authentic menu with some American-​Chinese dishes like Kung Pao available, as well. Price is fantastic! Feeling open to eating anything, I asked the server to pick something for me based on the facts that I enjoy seafood and a spicy heat in my food. He delivered boiled fish in chili oil and my plate was enough for 2 – 4 people to eat, especially if it’s for 4 people alongside an appetizer. Huge! I also ordered a papaya milk tea with boba and, for the first time, it was served in an actual fancy glass! It was very Vegas-​esque and I appreciated it. Go big or go home might as well be their slogan. Although it took a while for my check while it was not busy, I absolutely trust the judgment of the people who work here on their cuisine expertise because it was delicious.

In the ancient times of the Ming (?) Dynasty, the greatest value was placed on real food, real plants and real people.
For this reason, I have chosen to use my patented Integrity Scale for this review. This is a system I have designed that rates establishments on a scale of Auth to Sham in 3 categories: Food, Plants, and People.
Beginning with Food, I got some Kung Pao Chicken. Neat order, Cody! Yeah, I mean it was pretty tasty. It was kind of a tiny chicken mountain. Horrifying if you think about it for too long, really. It was pretty spicy if you choose to just eat the peppers that are hanging around the mountain. They are like little hikers or sideways goats or something? Haha, cute
metaphor, will try to keep this up. I assume there were vegetables in that pile somewhere, there may not have been. I have seen a blurry, B&W photo of one passing, but there is no way to confirm it was real. Trying to tie it into Sasquatch? IDK. Food was good. Authentic.
Oh wait, so there were peanuts too, and it is pretty hard to eat peanuts with a fork. I embarrassed myself in front of my friend, who did not get any peanuts to my
knowledge. Her food was pretty good too. Different kind of chicken, lots of Apps ‘n Sides. Not enough salt in the soup. ALLEGEDLY. Auth, okay, moving on.
Plants. Total sham. In this day and age, I allowed myself to be Suckered Again by the dang décor. Ya’ fooled me once The Dynasty, but ya’ won’t fool me again. Can’t trust a Sultry Saloon like this to give me a real, honest-​to-​goodness plant to make eye contact and uncomfortable conversation with. Faux flora. Huge black eye on the décor. Sham.
The people were totally Auth though. Our waitress was nice, I assume? I made next to no conversation with anybody working there. I paid on an iPad which was pretty cool! I bet the lady behind the counter plays games or surfs the internet when it is slow. I definitely would. Auth people.
Let’s see that makes this, uh, Auth, Sham, Auth on the Integrity Scale. Calculating. erm, let’s see that’s roughly a 88.5.hm, *math-​mumbles*, that’s a 6-​ring value on the Sensible Citizen Scale, which converts roughly into, eh, 4 Pepper Goats out of 5.
4 Pepper Goats out of 5. Good place.

Had to update my review after my last experience. This place has some of the best food in the world… not just for Bloomington and not just for Chinese. This place is amazing.
The last time I ventured into classic Chinese (or authentic… the real stuff made in China). That is a great option and I’m stoked to try more. But this time… I ordered off the American Chinese menu as did my two cohorts. And my mouth is drooling thinking about food i ate two weeks ago.
The atmosphere and service could use a little work. The folks are friendly, but we did have to order by finger point. I personally don’t mind (actually, for me this adds to the exoerience). Atmosphere is a typical whole in the wall chinese place.
I had the tofu Kung pao. The sauce I could just drink. We also tried each other’s dishes and everything was amazing. All for $ 10…and we had leftovers for lunch

Food here was above the average, but the price is little bit higher than other Chinese restaurants in town.
Love their bubble tea before Cocotaro opened, and their spicy fried hotspot was good.

Food is OK, service is *terrible*.
We were seated at 1 pm and ordered our food. We finally received our food at 1:40 pm – with no plates, no chopsticks, no silverware and the waiter brought the wrong drinks. We had also ordered two side dishes which we were charged for, but never received. The beef noodle soup was OK, but nothing to write home about.
I gathered that the restaurant caters to Bloomington’s sizeable Chinese population, so I was was really anticipating authentic Szechuan. I gathered that the waiter had problems understanding English, which may have contributed to the problems we had with regards to the service; but still, the service was unacceptably bad.

Ordered the Seafood Noodle Soup to go. Absolutely delicious. Broth was flavorful, plentiful veggie assortment. Only complain was that it had pork and I’m pescetarian so I ate around that. Otherwise, utterly scrumptious and I will return again. Huge amount of food for the price. I’d almost venture to say that you could split one soup between two people but why wouldn’t you want left overs the next day?
My partner ordered the Lamb and Saukraut Soup and said he would highly recommend it.
The restaurant itself has been around for a long time and could use some sprucing up. Perhaps not the perfect spot for a candle lit dinner but romance aside, seriously worth trying out. Especially in the wake of the first few restaurants that used to inhabit this building.

Chili chicken was delicious, prices not too bad. Gosh Bloomington has good chinese cuisine

Most authentic Chinese I’ve had in America. The Sichuan chicken was spicy and even with the little mouth numbing bites. Awesome and I will be back. Kudos to the chef for not Americanizing the cuisine. Brought back many fond memories of my time in Chengdu.

The food was okay, but *definitely* not authentic Szechwan cuisine. They did not use the right chili at all.
The biggest disappointment was their «Dry Pot» (干锅). It was not dry pot at all. It was similar to a certain Szechwan style stir fry (麻辣香锅), but its flavor was not close to what it should be. I doubt their chef’s knowledge of chinese food, since most chinese could easily tell the difference between the two dishes. If you want «Dry Pot», don’t order it. Also, you can choose three veggies for it. While it says «粉条» (a wide noodle like thing made from potatoes) on the menu, it turned out to be «粉丝» (similar to rice noodle) in the dish. This mistake should not be allowed in «authentic» Chinese food.
Other dishes were fine.

I got the beef noodle soup. it was a pathetic attempt. Granted the «handmade» noodles were very well made and great texture, the broth itself had no flavor and was just no where near what any Asian who has ever had a solid batch would ever recommend.
They did make decent eggs and tomatoes but at the $ 9 price tag it was a bit steep given i know the effort level and skill needed to make it.
Wouldn’t be running back again but might go there if friends were dying to go.

Great place for dining in. The service was wonderful too. Since I’m the first time there so the waitress explained and introduced the food to me in a patient and warm attitude. The milk tea of course is the best that I ever had. The original milk tea is my favorite. The best food that I will recommend is the house special pork and all noodles.
I will come back soon:)
Thank you the dynasty. I really miss u now.

Fantastic food. They are really delicious! I haven’t tried their bubble tea yet, but after reading so many good comments on it, I now have a second thought :)

They introduced gan guo! Fabulous! Song Hua Yu is also tasty. Although I don’t usually drink bubble tea, their bubble tea is the only one in town I’m glad that I tried.

I really like the beef noodle here. And it is kind of cheap. Innitially, I thought it wouldn’t be enough for one person with respect to one person’s apetite, but the amount of the ingredients they used was really impressively abundant and tasty. Definitely recommended if you go there.
Also, they have a large table for about 10 people. It is a good and lovely place not only for a casual meal but also a friends-​gathering, like birthday food party. Excellent food quality and service.

I love their appetizers, pork in garlic sauce, steam chicken with chili sauce. Beef in hot and spicy sauce is the best, the taste is similar to what I ate in China. Those servers are pretty and nice! I will also recommend the dry pot, you can miss this popular Chinese dish.

Please, will someone just stop being childish and oversensitive? Is it how American people feel about things to be as racist as possible? Where are these bizarre connotations from?
I got a lot of misperception in Europe and Asia that I were some other random races because of my appearance, but I never thought that was offensive. And people there thought the same thing!
It’s just like someone thought my Burberry trench coat was from Armani. No biggie, people make mistakes and that doesn’t affect anything at all. I won’t be offended and yell a lengthy manifestation at them to educate them how wrong they are.
For these reasons, I’m changing my stars to 5 to compensate someone’s bias. I loathe doing this, but when someone is demeaning my favorite Chinese dishes that cannot be found elsewhere in America, I do this for keeping the restaurant survive under the attack of these haters with fragile and sensitive self-​esteem.
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They definitely have some amazing and authentic Szechuan cuisine, well, as long as the chef is in the mood. I LOVE their new gan guo shrimp! Although it seems expensive at first, it actually comes with a lot of other stuff in it and it’s beyond enough for stomachs of two.
I have been here many times, but sometimes the taste of the food will somewhat below the regular experience. For example, we ordered a gan guo once and it was way too salty.
Customer service is an issue too. But overall, it could be improved.
Last but not least, their bubble tea is by far the best in town! Thank god they didn’t over saturated my taste buds with gazillions of sugar but they do leave a creamy sensation in your mouth.
I would have given them 5 stars had they improved their consistency of food quality and costumer service.

The taste was ok nothing interesting about the food at all except that was way overpriced. My friend had some egg dish and soup for 25 dollars, now that’s ridiculous. We paid 100 dollars for 5 of us and at the end the waitress come up and whispered something to the checkout guy that they needed to charge us for two teas because we had two cups even though it was one kettle. Pathetic. They really needed that extra 1.99. Guess what that extra 1.99 cost you returning customer and a bad review.
Oh yes there was 20% charge for 5 people even though there is no sign anywhere not to mention illegal. Should have not paid at all to these crooks.
Just as the places that have existed in this exact location that have failed this one will fail as well.

Their Szechuan dishes are okay, but others are not impressive.

Authentic Chinese restaurant with great flavors from Sichuan and Chongqing. Also has bubble tea. I liked their mushroom chicken in dried pot. Elegant interior décor. The only catch is that the tip amounts their iPad calculates automatically are the corresponding percentages of price+tax instead of price only — A bit annoying.