Jade Garden

This is authentic Cantonese-​style cuisine in a no-​frills setting. Owners are friendly. We ordered to go and the food came up in super quick time and was piping hot. Portions are huge, prices unbelievably low, and they added everything we needed for picnic including utensils and plates. They accept credit cards.

My boyfriend and I have gotten takeout from Jade Garden a few times. It is super close to our apartment, and they deliver, which was the attraction for us. The first time we ordered, it seemed like pretty standard Chinese. We ordered some egg rolls, and I got shrimp and broccoli, and he got chicken curry. It was decent enough to order again.
The next time we ordered, I tried shrimp curry, and he got Szechuan beef with hot and sour soup. My dish was edible, but I wouldn’t have recommended it to anyone. My boyfriend, who is a bit pickier about Chinese, wouldn’t even eat the Szechuan beef, and instead my soup his meal.
Jade Garden is super inconsistent, and I wouldn’t recommend ordering there. Even if they do some dishes well, it’s not enough to make me a repeat customer.

Being that grad life taught us the necessity of delivery my boyfriend and I quickly learned that to survive on a low budget it was imperative that we find the best Chinese take out. My roommate took the leap first. I came home one night to find a delicious smelling carry out container overflowing with what looked like beef and broccoli. Without hesitation I asked what this could be and all she said was: Jade Garden.
Since that night, we’ve ordered everything from their wonton egg drop soup, egg drop soup, hot and sour soup, crab rangoon, lo mein with shrimp, lo mein with beef, lo mein with veggies, moo shu pork, moo shu veggies, sweet and sour chicken, seafood combinations, beef and broccoli, shrimp with special sauce, ALL of the fried rice combos, etc. I’m actually proud in a not so proud way of how much we’ve eaten here. Sometimes I wish they had a frequent buyers card so that we could feel like we were working toward a goal, but alas.
I digress. My favorite dish is Jade Seafood Delight, Happy Family as wistful as that sounds is pretty good, and the sweet and sour chicken. The sweet and sour chicken is what I would describe as fried chicken donuts because the breading is usually crispy but with a hint of sweet flavor. On nights with sweet and sour, we don’t even bother eating with utensils. We’ll just grab them directly out of the box.
My conclusion is this: good, hot, large and I mean large serving sizes, for a cheap price, and fast delivery. They’ve made every one of our deliveries in under 20 minutes. It’s like magic. Bear in mind, it is a Chinese fast food place so not every dish will rock, but for the certain dishes that do? Totally worth it.

This is my choice when I need food delivery. I would recommend their fried chicken wings (whole and not spicy), which is probably the best fried wings you could get in the neighborhood, and house special mei fun (Singapore mei fun). Their lunch/​dinner combos are consistent and of great value.

I’ve ordered from here a few times now. I love their crab Rangoon and I was surprised by the spare rib tips, it’s so good even though you have to eat around the little chunks of bone.
PROS: All of the food I have gotten from them have been very good. Large portions so I am full and still have leftovers for lunch the next day.
CONS: They don’t take cards. Cash only unless ordering on grubhub

Pros — Fast & easy delivery. Pretty cheap. Generous portions.
Cons — Not very good flavor and SO sweet. Everything was bizarrely sweet, even the crab rangoons. Asked for General Tso Chicken extra spicy (it already had a spicy indicator on the menu)…and it wasn’t even a tiny bit spicy. More like chicken coated in maple syrup. Sesame noodles aren’t made from a traditional recipe with sesame oil, but instead appear to be just noodles with sweet peanut butter on top.
As easy as the delivery experience was, I’ll definitely be looking elsewhere for my Chinese delivery.

Ordered the house special Mei fun, kung po chicken, and house special fried rice.
Did take away. Place was a dive. Dirty, boxes everywhere, and they don’t take credit cards.
Food was yummy and cheap with huge portions. Will go back for sure.

Overall pretty good. Huge portion. Veg egg roll and fried rice were delicious. Can pay with credit card if you buy through Grubhub — it worked well.

Delivery: faster than I had expected. GrubHub said 45 minutes for delivery, I got it in about 20. A+.
I got a dinner combo which comes with a dinner entrée with fried rice that actually has bits of red pork in it like Hong Kong Restaurant (but unfortunately HK restaurant doesn’t deliver to my place anymore, strangely). I got beef and broccoli which I figured was something they couldn’t really mess up since it’s such a staple. Wasn’t terrible, definitely not the best. The beef tasted vaguely spicy (like they added a bit of black pepper — not even spicy, just the tiniest kick I guess) and I couldn’t even finish half of it. Portions were very generous for only $ 7.10. It was supposed to come with a Coke but I didn’t get it… one star off. Not really anything I was particularly upset about (kinda forgot about it) but still. I also ordered Hot and Sour Soup to meet the $ 9 minimum. DO NOT GET IT. This was probably the worst version of the soup I’ve ever gotten. I ended up dumping it in the sink, it was so gross. The sour part of it tasted like a rotten lemon which made it taste extremely disgusting.
Despite the soup, I would order again for fast delivery and satisfying my Chinese food craving. Just don’t get that soup.

Their portions are unbelievable. I can’t finish with two people! You have to try their crab rangoons though! My absolute favorite. I think they give you 8? And! It’s easy to order since they’re on grubhub, campus special, etc online!
Funny story though. It was finals week and, I had a call from a New York number and ignored it. Turns out it was the delivery guy! My friend went out of Clemons to get the food and ask why they had a NY number and he was from NY and didn’t have his number changed since he got here. Hahaaahahhaa I thought it was a scam.

Sorry but our experience was not so good. We ordered takeout and were very disappointed. (by the way, no credit cards at the point of sale, you have to order from the «Beyond Menu» web system for credit cards).
We ordered the seafood soup for two and it was actually not bad, but not exceptional either. Fortunately were taking the food home where we have plenty of stuff to «doctor up» food. We both added Sambal (chili garlic) sauce to our seafood soup to give it the flavor it lacked.
My wife ordered a jumbo shrimp entre (can’t remember which one, they pretty much all look alike) and while it looked good, it was not. It was completely lacking in flavor. She had to step all over it with Sambal to make it enjoyable.
Here’s the real test: I ordered Ma Po Tofu which is a staple in any Chinese restaurant (basic poor man’s food. Google it and read the story behind it) and as clear cut as it can be as to what it is AND is one of the few items on most menus that is actually authentic Chinese. What I got was NOT Ma Po Tofu (by the way I’m not a vegetarian, but I love this dish usually and order it all over town), it was virtually unprepared chunks of tofu swimming in what I suppose is their brown sauce they use all over the menu.
Ma Po Tofu is to be made with chili bean paste from fermented black beans and has green onion not what looked like «from frozen» diced carrots and peas… AND it is supposed to be heavy on Szechuan pepper (a very specific spice from the prickly ash berry that has a numbing effect) AND also be very spicy. What I got was absolutely nothing like Ma Po Tofu except that it had tofu and the sauce was brown.
Either they have no idea what Ma Po Tofu is, which tells you they don’t know what they are doing, or they think their customers are fools that not only don’t know what certain dishes are supposed to be, but also have no idea what good food tastes like. I had to totally deconstruct this dish and re-​create it in to something edible, otherwise throw it out which I hate to do.
The only good thing I can say about our order is the portions were huge (dinner order). I guess they figure they know the Americans they serve like big portions, but they clearly also know their regular customers apparently don’t know what good food is if our order was anything close to representative of their menu.
Also, like I wrote above, the seafood soup was OK. It was easily salvaged by some chili garlic sauce but you should not need to do that. The ingredients were large, chunky and the vegetables in the soup were fresh and the portion was large.
I give a GENEROUS 2 stars for an edible soup and large portions, but 2 stars is a stretch for our order.
Sorry fans, I suppose your food has been better or you have never had good Chinese (Well…what most Americans call Chinese food because most of it is not and has never been served in China).
Properly made Ma Po Tofu

I’d been warned away from Jade Garden by… I’m not sure who. I’m glad I ignored them. I think jade Garden is actually one of the better Chinese places in town (though that’s not saying much). I always get delivery and usually get a few days worth of food. Portions are large and prices are right. Here are ratings from my latest delivery:
Egg Roll (vegetable): A–
Beef & Broccoli: B
Fried Rice: C
Pork Egg Foo Young: C
Egg Roll (pork): A–
Beef Lo Main: B
The fried rice is bland. I can do better at home. The gravy for the egg foo young is the creamy style and does not offer much flavor. That’s fine — those egg rolls are delicious. You just have to learn what to order from which places.

Ok all the great reviews are ok but when you have to pay by check or cash it’s not worth it. This place is close to a few hotels and delivers. So why no CC? I get the big CC Companies squeeze the little guy for large % and leaves them with less from their hard labor. But get a Square Deal CC account and it’s less costly. Then you can service a larger demographic like the Traveler and Business Traveler staying in a hotel. So unless you got cash and or check go next store and eat at La Joya.

Very good Chinese food restaurant. I’m quite pleasantly surprised to find such a good restaurant near such a small town.
The portion is HUGE, the prices are very fair, the tastes are quite authentic.
I’m Chinese and I’m from California. I definitely had much better Chinese food in China (of course we just call it «food» there!) and in California. But here in the middle of the State of Virginia, I don’t think I can ask for much better than this little one.
If I had to pass through Charlotteville again, definitely will stop by again.

This is our go-​to Chinese restaurant in town. It took us a little while to find the right balance of crispy egg rolls, tasty fried dumplings, and decent General Tso’s chicken. They also give coupons every time you order, so I have yet to pay full price for any meal!
Not the best Chinese I have ever had, but better than the other Chinese restaurants in town, IMO.