Tra Ling’s Oriental Cafe

I’m writing this review as a reminder for myself to go somewhere else next time. Egg drop lacked color and looked like water with something white in it. Orange beef was ok, breaded and fried and covered in sauce. Was expecting something a little more, maybe one or some veggies.
Delivery was quick and it was inexpensive.

I got a delivery from here. First of all, I ordered sweet and sour chicken. It came with just fried chicken. I think they forgot the sauce! The rice was a little grainy. There was nothing great about the soup.

Horrible!!! Back 6 or 7 years ago this place used to be amazing and had the best crab cheese wontons in town. Their chicken fried rice is basically inedible, the rice is hard, the chicken is chewy– overall bad

Not the best atmosphere and it is difficult to find parking, but the food was very good. The egg drop soup was great, the egg rolls were pretty good, and I loved the orange chicken. It is definitely worth getting, but maybe delivery is better.

all of the meat was overcooked and dry, they tried to compensate by giving me lots of sauce. A third of what i ordered was inedible, and what i did eat was lousy in terms of flavor. Im pretty sure i risked food poisoning, learn how to cook meat and maybe ill order again.

If you go in with expectations that for 5 bucks you’ll get high quality, gourmet health food, of course you’ll be disappointed. Tra Ling’s is a great deal — you get a bunch of food for a low price. It’s definitely a hole in the wall, but it’s clean and everyone I’ve encountered who works there is very friendly.
The delivery does take a while, so be prepared to wait up to an hour for your delivery.

Certainly not one of the better hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurants on the Hill.
The restaurant is very small in of itself and there isn’t much room to really have a lot of people in there at once. The food that I had was very greasy, soggy, and only slightly warm, which added to an overall distaste. The fried rice was under cooked and overly salted. The lemon chicken was also very acidic and hard to get down when paired with a spoonful of rice.
It is open late, which is nice for those who want a late night bite. The prices are cheap for the amount of food you get, but I would recommend the restaurant next door for a better Chinese food experience.

Narsty. Tastes like chemicals, soggy, not fresh, probably loaded with GMOs. Yikes.

I’m sorry but…
Ratchet, ratchet, and super ratchet!
This is the worst food I’ve ever had in my life… We ordered 10 minutes before they closed and they delivered in a reasonable amount of time, but the taste and quality of food was beyond disgusting.
We ordered chicken wraps, 2 soups, cat (chicken skewers), avocado salad, and edamame…
Only items worth eating were the edamame and avocado on the salad, the lettuce was atrocious!
Fresh or not, delivered or in-​house, this was just gross and weird!!! I know food from all over.
You really have to go out of your way to make food that bad!

Horrible. First off, I can tell that the food is not fresh as its been sitting in those hot pans and they have built that «film» on top of the sauce. Everything tastes musty and strange. Second of all, the driest and rudest staff I’ve ever seen. Besides the language barrier, they could not acknowledge my simple requests for to-​go forks and basic necessities a restaurant should accommodate. It’s full of those rude, poorly hand-​written signs saying «XX. cents for refills» and «.XX cents for blah blah something that should be free». This place is trash. I can’t believe it’s survived the 3 ½ years I’ve been in this town.

Not the best food I’ve ever had, but for around $ 5 you can get an large styrofoam carton stuffed with tasty! The fried rice and lo mein is suprisingly good, and most of the chicken entrees are enjoyable. Nothing special and similiar to Panda Express, but a good deal cheaper.
The actual resturaunt is grungy but fits in being on the hill. I personally dig it, but I wouldn’t hold a first date there…
Overall, great value! I hit this place up frequently as it’s very close to campus and lets me stuff my face for a lincoln.

Crispy Duck – Pretty good
Calamari-​Is really soggy, not crispy… and put sauteed vegetables on top, but the flavor was good (would not order again)
Fried Chicken-​My favorite in Boulder (but that doesn’t say much because all fried chicken in Boulder sucks)
Pros– Open late, Okay food
Con-​The wait is often long, at least an hour and a half and I live only 7 minutes away… Food often comes cold/​soggy

Cheap, Quick, Consistent and Delicious!
I have lived in boulder for just under 10 years, and while I cannot rave about TraLings, I have gone back many times for these reasons:
1) Delivery! In my opinion, convenience is the best thing about chinese food… if you are searching for gormet, organic, etc. do not go here, you will not find what you are looking for. They are always fast, but often ordering over the phone can be a challenge, double check your order with the person taking the order.
2) Crab Cheese Wontons! They are handmade and soooooo much better than any other wontons I’ve tried in Boulder. There is much more filling (cream cheese) and large lumps of crab (or, more likely, imitation crab), and they have not been fried to death… still crispy, but chewable.
3) Price! TraLings is super cheap… no entrée is over $ 10, and they are large portions served with rice on the side.
I have had nothing but bad experiences ordering from their hot counter, but if you order entrees for pick up or delivery, they make everything fresh for your order. I really like the Chicken Curry, but most of the sauces are pretty flavorful, and the ingredients are good quality.

We have ordered in food from Traling’s for about 25 years, ever since they opened. The food was always wonderful. It used to be a Sunday night ritual for us. What a sad demise. The last 3 times we have ordered, it has been terrible. Last night was our last time. We won’t be ordering from there again.
The beef with broccoli was simply inedible, and the Thai coconut curry chicken was almost as bad. The vegetables were barely cooked, but the worst part was the meat in both dishes. I don’t know how you get beef and chicken to have disgusting texture and flavor like that. We just threw away the beef dish and might throw the chicken away, too. It’s just too gross to eat. I sure wish the old owners would come back! Their food was terrific!
The new owners need to get a clue. I don’t think even college students will eat enough of that awful «food» to keep this restaurant going for long. They’ve got to be losing customers in droves. I guess it’s time for us to find a new Cinese place that delivers. So sad…

On the positive side Tralings is open pretty late. In Boulder, it is very hard to find late night Chinese food. The food is fast, quick casual, and definitely greasy. If its late at night, and you are on the hill, chances are, you probably had a few beers. If that is the case, the food might taste better. In addition, I have discovered that the hot sauce helps with the taste. The boba isn’t bad and is another positive thing about this restaurant. Every once in a while, I will get a craving for something greasy and I will come here.

As the prices have gone up the quality has gone steadily down.
Around 2005 or 2006 this was actually a fairly decent place to eat. I mean it wasn’t gourmet by and means but it was the best dollar scoop style Chinese place in boulder. Slowly but surely over the years the foods gotten worse and the prices have shot up. I’d say the prices when i was there last weekend have doubled since 2005.
When we where there last weekend the food was bad, like really bad. The wontons where mushy and old, the noodles where old, the chicken was over fried. I ate a few bites and went somewhere else, it was uneatable.
For the density of restaurants in the area I’d recommend finding something else, this was awesome 6 years ago but it’s lost its value and quality.

There was a piece of glass in my lo mein. Have you ever bitten a piece of glass?
It hurts.

Only consume whilst intoxicated.
…very intoxicated.

I stopped in here the other day because it’s close to my work and I was craving some satisfying and greasy Asian food. I’ve heard terrible things about this place, but then again, it seems Boulder is known for having pretty bad Chinese food, so I went in with low expectations.
I asked the woman behind the counter if there were vegetarian options, and she was quick to point out that the vegetarian food had its own little section, which I definitely appreciate. I got white rice with eggplant tofu, and garlic string beans to go and the serving was huge. And for under $ 6. And it was great. It was steaming hot and the eggplant would just melt in my mouth, which is exactly how I like it. Both were spicy and full of garlic, also just the way I like it. I brought it back to my work and everyone kept commenting on how good it looked and smelled.
I’m sure it’s not the highest «quality» food, but it certainly exceeded my expectations, and the price is unbeatable.

Hmmm… yeah. I’m going to have to do something that I rarely do and agree with the two-​and-​a-​half star rating Tra Ling’s already has.
I’ve come here for a boba tea fix a bunch, especially when I’m picking up lunch from places that don’t serve it. How do you mess up boba tea? Lollicup manages to, so I guess it’s possible. But Tra Ling’s doesn’t — it’s nice and passable every time. Because it comes from a machine.
The food’s all in warmer vats and up until the other day, I merely eyed them nervously as I edged up to the front to get my boba tea. But on Thursday, I happened to see that their lunch special cost $ 2.99. Now, until recently that would have been a turn-​off rather than a turn-​on, but now that I am jobless and paying full university tuition, it was like a neon beacon beckoning me into a warm embrace.
So I ordered the Thursday Special, which was chicken and broccoli.
There were a few mishaps. While I was waiting for a woman to run in the back and grab more boba tea (they were out), the man who was ordering behind me paid for his food (eggplant and tofu with fried rice), grabbed his bag, and left.
Turned out it was my bag he grabbed. I opened mine later to eat it and found tofu and eggplant inside. You know what? I’d rather have ordered tofu and eggplant anyway, but it was more expensive since it wasn’t on the lunch special menu. So this faux pas worked for me and I benefitted enormously, so I’m not even knocking them for this, but maybe… just… like… keep the identical styrofoam cartons in the right order… or something.
Mishap #2: This was the first time their boba tea tasted off. Maybe it was from being the first cup served from that batch, but it was way oversteeped.
Mishap #3: The tofu and eggplant were, I think, the tiniest bit moldy. I didn’t notice at first, because it wasn’t apparent in the sauce-​soaked taste, but upon further inspection I saw that there were little green streaks in the tofu and under the skin of the eggplant. I continued eating after having discovered this (am I stupid or am I brave? Discuss!) but with decidedly less zeal.
And yeah, it tasted okay. Nothing earth-​shattering. Wouldn’t expect earth-​shattering for the price. I would, however, expect the absence of mold.