China #1

Got crispy chicken with white rice here. Wasn’t what I expected. The chicken was too greasy. There are many other better Chinese restaurants around here. Would not recommend.

We wanted Chinese last night and based off reviews this seemed a good option. I got fried wantons which were really quite tasteless and shrimp Lo mein that was, again, tasteless. Will keep looking in the area for a good spot, but we haven’t found it yet.

Buddha’s Tofu and Shrimp w/​Cashews. Veggies really fresh, sauce not overwhelming and very tasty (garlic sauce had real kick & was served on the side so you can add as much as you like). Veggie spring rolls were good. Wontons were a little overdone, but the rest was so good, we didn’t care at all. Again, the vegetables were great.

Huge plus right off the bat in not requiring a high delivery minimum (only $ 5).
Lunch orders are taken as early as 11:00. The fastest I’ve gotten my food delivered to a spot one mile away is about 30 minutes – not bad. Most of the delivery guys speak decent English by ‘neighborhood Chinese delivery runner’ standards and arrive decently dressed.
Pro tip #1:
Demand a delivery time (realistically not less than 20 – 25 minutes out) or else you will wait upwards of half an hour, and in some cases, an hour or more.
The lunch specials (around $ 5) are great value, coming with your choice of white rice, veggie fried rice, or roast pork fried rice. You also can get an egg roll, wonton soup, egg drop soup, or soda. The entrée comes in a round, deep, plastic container – definitely a step up from the traditional Chinese takeout boxes or folding Styrofoam containers (those in pictures from past years). The people taking orders over the phone are definitely on top of special requests (e.g., no mushrooms, no peppers, no snowpeas, no water chestnuts). The meats are softer in texture and less dry than some other Chinese delivery options in the area.
Pro tip #2:
Order your lunch special with either $ 1 or $ 2 of extra meat. Well worth it, as $ 2 of extra meat will easily double your protein intake.
I’ve been extremely frustrated with the options that are supposedly designated as being spicy. I recall, for instance, Szechuan and Hunan style lunch specials both being exceedingly sweet and lacking on the heat scale. The sweetness was very off-​putting and I would not recommend either of these dishes to anyone expecting typical examples. Curry chicken is more of a success when it comes to delivering in the savory department. For dishes such as this that include large sliced onions, I might try requesting if the kitchen can cook the onions slightly more.

One of my favorite take-​out places in the hood. They have more vegetarian options than most, and the vegetables don’t seem like they’ve just been microwaved after being frozen, but actually cooked. Not always the quickest for delivery, but worth the wait.

Super fast delivery. Affordable, great tasting, and heaping portions for the price. Can’t go wrong here.

Pretty inferior cheap chinese. We got Chicken and Broccoli and Sesame chicken and neither were good. The chicken was too squishy and not crispy at all, and all of it was pretty bland. I’m sure there are better options.

good food, AND they have healthy options.

My go-​to lunch spot in Borough Park.
This place is a true hole in the wall. No wasting time on decorations. When you walk in, you see their boxes of soda bottles, stacked bags of rice, and miscellaneous products bought in bulk arranged on the side. Heck, to get to the bathroom, you walk through the kitchen.
What you do get is great fast-​food chinese food — plentiful and cheap. Their lunch specials helped keep me alive as a student in a neighborhood where good food is scarce.
Plus, the guy working the register remembered me after almost a year’s absence.
And that other Unilocaler was money: the delivery guy rides a motorcycle. B-​A-​D-​A-​S-​S.
DECOR: 0
AMBIANCE: 0
FOOD: +1
VALUE: +1
SERVICE: +1
OVERALL: FIVE THOUSAND
Glad I came and will recommend to all.

Exceptional Cantonese style, basic but flavorful! The vegetables are always fresh. Order in, the place itself is very drab, depressing even.

I found the vegetable noodle soup I had been craving here! Can’t speak for the rest of the menu.

This is a ghetto Chinese food restaurant. Normally I don’t mean that in a pejorative way. Ghetto Chinese food is awesome. Super fried, super greasy, super yummy. Total comfort food. The kind of food that’s oh-​so-​good and makes you wake up with a thick sheen of peanut oil on your face the next morning. You can usually tell a ghetto Chinese food restaurant because they have cafeteria style seating, bare walls painted an odd color for a restaurant (like pink or powder blue), and serve food you normally don’t see in Chinese cuisine, like fried chicken wings or onion rings.
Unfortunately, China #1 is not particularly good ghetto Chinese food, as you can tell by my food ratings below. I feel kind of bad saying that because it’s a customer friendly business: they’re very friendly, have free delivery, and accept credit cards. They serve both Cantonese and Szechuan. The delivery guy rides a motorcycle.
Appetizers
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Spring Roll: B
You normally see these small delicious things in Thai restaurants. This one was obviously frozen and had a slight off-​flavor that I couldn’t identify.
Fried Shrimps: B+
Pretty good. Big shrimp — not popcorn shrimp. A little addicting.
Shrimp Toast: A–
One of my guilty pleasures is shrimp toast. No matter how bad my day is, greasy shrimp toast can always bring a smile to my face and a whistle to my lips. This shrimp toast was a bit overdone. The outside was a bit burnt, and mind you, I *like* burnt crusts on my shrimp toast. This was too burnt.
Steamed Shrimp, Chicken, Pork, Vegetable Dumpling: C–
Fried Shrimp, Chicken, Pork, Vegetable Dumpling: C–
Absolutely unacceptable! I’ve had steamed/​fried shrimp dumplings that was orders of magnitude better straight from the freezer section of C-​Town. The dumpling casing was mealy, tasteless and had bad texture. The filling tasted of off-​flavored shrimp.
Chinese Roast Pork: C+
Tough, not enough fat and too sweet. Comes in a sweet sauce.
BBQ Spare Ribs: A–
They used to be a little on the dry side; over done. The last batch I had were actually very delectable. Fatty and cooked so that they still were tasty and juicy. My only criticism is that they were *slightly* too oily for my tastes (which means they might be too oily for you).
Soup
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Wonton Soup: C+
The wonton meat had a nice flavor, but the noodle tasted a bit stale and was a little stiff as if not cooked enough.
Hot and Sour Soup: B
A good, solid hot and sour soup.
Lo Mein
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Pork Lo Mein: B
A good, solid pork lo mein.
Fried Rice
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Ham Fried Rice: B–
Nice flavor, but a bit starchy and «al dente».
Chicken
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Crispy Chicken: B–
It is neither crispy nor spicy (as the menu indicates). They are actually quite soggy. They are Chicken McNuggets, and you get a container filled with sweet and *slightly* spicy sauce that you’re supposed to pour over the Chicken McNuggets. I don’t like sweet, I love spicy, so I wasn’t overly fond of these.
Beef
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Sha Cha Beef: B
Nice brown sauce. Was not spicy at all. Wish it had a tad more beef.
Combination Platters
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Sesame Chicken: B+
Evelyn didn’t like it as much as I did. The sauce was a tad sweet, which I normally don’t like, but this was tasty. Chicken pieces were breaded and lightly fried.
House Special
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Fried Chicken Wings: B+
Very good.
Hunan /​Szechuan
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Mongolian Beef:
Mongolian Pork: B–
It had decent flavor, but there was far, far, far too little meat in comparison to the onions and scallions. Furthermore, the scallions were too tough: either they weren’t cooked enough or they were of very low quality.