Asian Express

Typical Chinese takeout spot, located right on Main Street in Charlottesville near UVa. Fast. Good taste. Lackluster service (forgot to put forks in my to go bag and didn’t seem to want to give them to me). Expensive at $ 18+ for a large shrimp fried rice and large pork lo mein.

I’ve only eaten here once. Food is pretty good and reasonably priced. I ordered takeout, and the cashier charged me $ 36 for a $ 26 order. I didn’t realize this until I looked at the receipt stapled to the bag after I’d paid. I informed the cashier, and he said he must have «accidentally» pushed the wrong button on the card machine. However, he had audibly told me the total was $ 36, so he hadn’t just pushed the wrong button. He cancelled the transaction and charged me the correct amount. This looked to be an attempt to get an extra $ 10 out of me, and a lie to cover it up. Make sure to closely review your receipt if you eat here…

Why are delivery places so f’ing tough to deal with? DO NOT order from here. Listen, the food was okay. But I felt sick after. Also, delivery drivers are so RUDE. This is what happened:
*knock knock knock*
You order food?
Yes, thank y–
And he starts walking away!!! Wtffffff

DO NOT ORDER FOR DELIVERY! Cancelled an order on ¹⁄₂₄ and JUST got this resolved today (²⁄₂₁). The primary portion of my star-​rating is simply because using GrubHub was easy to order and there are many choices. I put in an order at 6:48pm on the evening of ¹⁄₂₄ and even by 9:00pm we still didn’t have our food. It took up to (if not more than) 10 phone calls to Asian Express– we finally cancelled the order.
Full disclosure: It was ~2 days after a winter storm, but the majority of the streets were plowed, this establishment put themselves back online for delivery to our location, and THEY estimated about 30 – 40 min. Absolutely false. I’d rather they be honest with the expected delivery time instead of providing incredibly inaccurate ETAs for food.
I’ve been calling almost every week to speak with a manager (this role was taken by two different women that work there) and was tossed back and forth as to what I needed to do to ‘cancel’ the order. I kept hearing «ok we’ll take care of this» or from the other woman «I’ll talk to the owner [who has been out of town until today] and make sure she cancels it.» Now so many weeks later, I called Asian Express and the manager was extremely rude, unapologetic, did not want to have anything to do with helping right the wrong, AND lied to me saying she cancelled the order on ¹⁄₂₄ with GrubHub. Upon calling GrubHub today to check on the cancellation of the order, they said the restaurant has never called to report the cancellation. The GrubHub rep was super helpful and instantly put in a request for refund (I’ll remember to do this first if there is a next time).
First time we ordered from this place and never again.

This place is pretty decent for delivery. I haven’t been to the actual establishment but the delivery process was really easy and thorough. The menu online is frighteningly widespread, but we just stuck with the lunch specials, which are a solid, cheap meal. They come with rice, an egg roll, and a soda, all for only $ 6.50. Delivery is also free. The only downside was that it took a while — a little over an hour for 5 lunches, and we are not far away. As for the food itself, surprisingly good. Personally I ordered the Hunan tofu, and the tofu itself was a good texture and flavorful. If anything, a little too heavy on the soy sauce, but I’m glad it wasn’t too starchy like most Chinese takeout. My friend’s green beans were also well done, not too mushy. And the beef in the beef broccoli was also nice and lean and not starchy either.

DO NOT ORDER FROM HERE! Worst place I have ever dealt with. Go to Lemongrass if you want Asian food!
1. When I tried to order from their website it was shaky at best. Some things added to my cart and some didn’t. My wife said «just call and order». So I did. The woman that answered was very short with a horrible attitude. I tried to pull up my order from the website cart and it didn’t pull up. I have now spent 30 min picking out food and trying to get the site to work. I ask the lady to please bear with me that the website wasn’t working and she asked me to hold and I could hear her complaining to someone that I was taking too long. She got back on the phone and I started to order. Going one by one picking the two entrees and three sushi rolls again from their website. She kept sighing and asking me to hurry. Then she told me to figure it out and call back and hung up on me. I only had the last roll to tell her!!! So I call back after she hung up and completed my order. She said it would be ready in 15 min.
I went to pick it up and it wasn’t ready. Then when I got the food back to the house it had hair in it!!! I took it back and they would not give me back my money. Said it could be my hair. It was a long piece of hair and I have hair one inch long. Worst experience ever. I called my credit card company and cancelled the charge after leaving the disgusting contaminated food there at the restaurant. DO NOT GO HERE. SHE WOULDNT EVEN GET ME THE MANAGER.

Not meant to be authentic Chinese
For a Chinese food night with kids and quick this is a go
If you want dependable take-​out that is American Chinese fast food, this is your choice in Cville.
All dishes are what you’d expect.
Test dishes for American palette Chinese — egg roll, general tsoas, and beef broccoli… All area above average. Broccoli is fresher than most and a tad crunchy — high heat wok.
Grease is always issue with the more round-​eye dishes
Try the roasted Chinese pork with Chinese vegetables. Brown sauce but good.
I’ve ordered 15 times — half deliver half pickup
Prices are standard. Delivery is quick
You can go in and see the cooks cooking — if you are curious go watch on Friday night while waiting for your order.
Daughter of owner usually there at register

I ordered sushi for delivery here and was really unhappy with the service and the food itself. For starters, the portion size was extremely small for how much I was paying which was around $ 14 (including tax and the delivery fee). Plus, I ordered takeout and the driver didn’t even bring the food to my door. I tipped him 46% mind you. I’m just really upset that I spent so much money to receive such a small meal and didn’t even receive good service despite leaving a nice tip.

I ordered the sushi from Asian Express though Grub Hub, there was a deal for two rolls and get a third roll free. I got the Crunch roll, the Virginia roll and a Tuna roll and they were absolutely delicious. Really fresh, delivered right on time (although I suppose that part is a credit to Grub Hub rather than Asian Express). One of them had sauce (I think it was the Virginia roll) and it was my favorite but they were all really good. The price is good for really solid sushi. I will definitely be ordering from them again.

This is the best Chinese place that does not have a buffet that I have been to in Charlottesville! I have been there to eat, ordered take-​out, and have ordered delivery many times, and both are completely satisfactory. The woman I have always seen working the register basically reads your mind when you are ordering, not rushing, just showing that she understands.
The service is great, efficient as always, and they give you exactly what you pay for as quickly as possible. There are a few seats inside, a few seats on the porch looking over Main Street, and there is a picnic table to the side. The only thing that would make this place better is if they expanded for more room to sit and eat and maybe had some more parking. That may require them to move, though, and their centrality is crucial. It may also change the nature of the business, which could be said to be too good to want to change.
The key to what makes them so great for me is that they have a vegetarian dinner special (57: Vegetable Delight) that will blow you away, with as many kinds of vegetables as they can put in it. It comes with fried rice and a drink, and they give you vegetarian egg rolls as well (something I was worried about until I first went to this establishment). Dinner specials are the way to go when ordering from this restaurant, for the amount of food and the variety for the price definitely is outstanding. My girlfriend and I were able to split this large portion, and having it alone I have to save it for later, giving you an idea of the value implicit in this place.
It is important to note that if you order delivery, the delivery drivers will expect you to be as efficient as they are, and you will not want to hold them up. Be ready to pay in cash and not receive much acknowledgement at all. By that point, however, you are already hungry and ready to eat what you ordered. It is never unpleasant, just quick.

This place is awesome. My boyfriend came in from out of town pretty late tonight and we couldn’t find anywhere to get food after 9pm. We even tried to get a rotisserie chicken as Kroger/​Teeter and they were out of those. I called a few other Asian places in the area and if they were closing within 30 min they wouldn’t take my pick up order even though I lived 5 min away. Asian express was super accomodating, really cheap, fast and delicious. They even have great lunch specials during the week for 7 bucks. On top of it all, they have free delivery. I’ll definitely be back!

I’ve been ordering from this place mostly for lunch. I haven’t tried the sushi here yet, just getting the Chinese food. I can say that whatever you order, the food is consistent every time. They have some lunch items that are uncommon but worth the try. Most of the time I would just get the General Tso’s chicken. You get an egg roll and a soda with the lunch meal and the price is pretty cheap. Last time I got the curry shrimp which was good (could have been more shrimp in it but that’s alright). Overall, it’s okay. Nothing special. It’s close to the hospital so that’s an added bonus if you want to walk to pick up your food.

Don’t go here if you’re a vegetarian. They cook all of their dishes together in one pot and manually remove the meat if you order a vegetable-​only dish. Gross! When I received my last order of Hunan Vegetables, it had small pieces of chicken in it and they offered to replace it with no apologies but said I would have to pick it up and I couldn’t get an eggroll or soda (like the dinner special I had originally ordered) with it because it was a «free meal» and they had a «policy» they couldn’t deliver comped meals. I explained it wasn’t really free given I paid for something I hadn’t received and the woman/​manager refused to honor it. Wow… What service! Never going back here again. They need to learn what customer service means.

I always opt for the sushi takeout here. It’s delicious, nothing fishy or old or stale, and it arrives promptly on time. For non-​raw sushi I recommend the Shrimp Tempura roll and Seafood Nest Roll, absolutely delicious, Perfect sized too, not too big. I wish they would give more for the seafood nest roll, I paid nearly 10 $ for 5 large-​ish pieces. It is delicious though.

The food is great and very reasonably priced. Generous portions also. We had tuna and salmon roll, sesame chicken and fried pork with vegetables. All of them were great and we had to take half of it home. The owner and the employees are very friendly and helpful. My son has a peanut allergy and we always have to be careful going to resturants, especially Asain ones, but we spoke to the owner and had no problems. It was a very enjoyable experience. We will definately be back.

We have ordered from schezuan restaurant twice and it is delicious! The food is great! We’ve ordered several different items off of the menu and have enjoyed all of them.
We placed the order on Orderup and The food was delivered quickly to our door in under 20 minutes. We are very pleased with our experience!

The vegetable soup is a tasteless mix of frozen vegetables and flavored water. The shrimp shumai were awful. The chicken fried rice was only good because we were starving. I appreciate that they were open on Thanksgiving Day, but the world would be better off if they never opened.

Very expensive, rude, bad food. Spent $ 40 at dinner for one sushi roll and two dinner combos. Asked for a little chill oil to add to the moo shu and told me it would be an extra 40 cents.

I’ve ordered delivery twice from Asian Express, once from their website and once from GrubHub, and been satisfied with the food both times.
Their sushi’s good: it tastes fresh and is fairly inexpensive. I’ve gotten their Shrimp Tempura roll, Alaska roll, Philadelphia roll, and California roll and have been pleased with all of them. Many of their rolls come with roe on the outside, which is a nice touch flavor– and texture-​wise. They also offer plenty of specialty rolls, which I’ve admired, but not yet ordered. Their sushi definitely beats supermarket sushi and is probably a step or two down from a nicer sushi restaurant, but very competitive on price. They occasionally offer coupons on GrubHub.
I’ve also gotten their Chicken Lo Mein and been pleased, although the lo mein noodles look a little more like spaghetti noodles than what I’m used to. (They’re thinner, but they’re definitely lo mein noodles, taste-​wise.) Plenty of chicken meat — they don’t skimp on the protein! At first I thought the lo mein was kinda pricey, but it comes in a large portion size that could last 2 – 3 meals for one person.
Only complaint is that delivery takes a while (about an hour on both a Thursday night and a Saturday afternoon), but we live about 10 minutes away and out of the way, so I’m just happy they deliver at all. If you’re going to order online, I would recommend ordering via GrubHub instead of their website, since GrubHub will give you updates about the ETA on your food. I ordered through their website the first time and didn’t have any clue as to when my food would actually arrive.
My food’s always shown up with enough chopsticks and more than enough soy sauce packets for the meal.
Update: Asian Express randomly stopped delivering to our apartment for a few weeks. During that time, I discovered Tokyo Rose. I much prefer Tokyo Rose’s sushi and they deliver much more quickly. So, Asian Express is out for sushi, even though they’re back to delivering to our area, but they’re still a decent option for non-​sushi cuisine.

Perfect for to-​go and delivery. On a weeknight, this is my favorite, easy way to have both stir fry and sushi at my door when I get home from work. (Check out their scheduled delivery options on
)
I often go for a couple sushi rolls (not the best I’ve ever had, but much better than grocery store sushi), hot and sour soup (large portion is cheap and filling) and/​or some steamed veggies in garlic sauce.