Dragon Garden

Pictures say it all. Best Szechuan restaurant in Cupertino! It is very spicy and delicious. A bit small for large party.

This relatively new restaurant has become my favorite local Chinese lunch spot since Szechuan Home closed. I’ve tried a number of dishes, and my favorite are the cumin lamb and an intensely spicy dry-​fried chicken dish (oddly, the only chicken on the lunch menu). This is pretty serious Szechuan food without being weird «country style», and yes, there are only chopsticks on the table. That’s actually preferable with the chicken dish, since it’s full of little bones, so you want to eat it piece by piece without scooping it up (which would also get you a mouthful of chili peppers, so watch out).

Food was MEDIOCRE at best … but let me drop a few words about the service … or lack thereof! Servers seemed somewhat inviting & hospitable to the Chinese patrons … but other than that … good luck! Very inattentive would be a KIND description … & verbal descriptions of the dishes … OUT OF THE QUESTION! We may not have a grasp of the SICHUAN flavor … but would rather not if it is accompanied with the POOR SERVICE we received! Go elsewhere …

Hits my Sichuan spirit right in the feels. Wonderful staff as well, and some light jazzy music in the background.

VERY AUTHENTIC. If you are not ready for authentic sichuan food, do not come here. There is a very complex flavor profile that only someone native to the area can re-​create. It’s spicy but not just hot-​pepper dumping. The only thing I would criticize is the steam rice is not the top notch quality.
Also, whoever complained about the red pepper chicken having bones, I would like to kindly ask you go to McDonalds and have you chicken nuggets there. That is how it’s supposed to be made. In fact, I should thank you for that because that is how I knew it’s stood a good chance of being authentic and it definitely did not disappoint.

Holy Sichuan pepper! This is really the first time I’ve had authentic Sichuan cooking that reminds me of Chengdu. This is authentic stuff. My suspicion is that many folks looking for American Chinese food will be disappointed, but if you are looking for real Sichuan food, try this out.
I am American so I had to ask for extra spicy, so I am not sure how they would have done it for a normal white guy.
But this is the Bomb. I am absolutely coming back!!!

I went here for takeout so I can’t speak much about the quality of service.
The food was good (we went to the back of the menu as the front was way too expensive for a quick lunch). The sauces were tasty and varied – too many times you order from a place and all the sauces taste the same! The downside: two of the dishes that we really wanted to try weren’t available. That always sucks!
I probably won’t go back. It just wasn’t anything special.

In general, any type of Chinese food dripping in neon red oil gets my juices flowing. Unfortunately, Dragon Garden didn’t really hit the spot for me. Their signature dish, the «huge baking pan thing with the huge fish in a pool of hot oil over a flame» dish, was unimpressive and overpriced. It had too much «Ma» flavor, and left my mouth sour and tasteless.
The other dishes we ordered were pretty standard. Tasty and good overall, but standard. Nothing made us scream «yes, we’re coming back!» The flavors just didn’t stand out, which it really needs to as this type of food is growing more and more popular.
I will say that the restaurant is really clean and well serviced (not something you usually hear in Chinese restaurant reviews huh?!). I mostly enjoyed the food but the «signature» dish was just too much of a letdown.

5 star for their food, –1 star for the service.
I am not a zombie, but sometimes i do crave for some pork brain. This is the only restaurant I know that has it on the menu. When I got there, they ran out of the brain but their staff still went out to get some just for me. I really appreciate that.
The food tasted great. Even my husband, who refused to give the brain a try, liked it after his first bite.
But the service was just ok. The staff talked like he didn’t belong to the restaurant when I asked for recommendations. Will go back for the brain dish.

Be careful when ordering the frog legs and chicken dishes. They didn’t even bother de-​boning the chicken so we had to be careful with our lunches so as not to destroy our teeth in the process. Also, the eggplant dish was swimming in oil a la Panda Express. At least they had good flavor though my tongue and lips were numb afterwards.
I was more bothered by the girl who managed the cashier that particular day. If I could speak Chinese, I would speak to her in Chinese instead of English because she could barely understand what I said. Every single order I said, she would reply with «HUH??» Then I had to point at the menu so she knew what I wanted to order.

Please don’t look at the menu photos Chyna posted. They’re outdated, and the place is now about twice as expensive, and I feel like the some (not all) of the serving sizes shrank. I came to this place before, and was really excited by their large portions and cheap price. I think they may have realized their opportunity, but they made their changes too excessive.
The food is good, and it’s szechuan/​numbing spicy for half of the dishes, and just plain spicy for the other half. Their Yang Chou style fried rice didn’t fit into the two halves I’m talking about, making it taste quite plain, but my party took to soaking the rice in the spicy noodle broth, which made for a delicious (albiet oily) treat. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to tell you what the food is called on their new menu, as I couldn’t figure it out myself.
Their chongqing chicken is good when you can find meaty pieces. The meat and bone are cut into pieces, and it’s quite the disappointment when you find a large piece you’re expecting to be meaty and realize you just bit down on bone. If you’ve gone to Chili Garden in Milpitas, it’s like theirs, but less meaty.
I just can’t justify coming here with the price and breezy front door. I’d rather go to Sichuan Chili nearby, but this place is open a little later, feels (slightly) more like a restaurant, and takes card.

Don’t come here if you don’t like your food SPICY! 90% of the pictures on the menu have some kind of pepper, hot oil, or general bright redness to it!
We randomly drove by, saw this new Dragon Garden sign and busted a U-​ie to check it out for lunch.
The beef noodle soup was pretty good. The noodles were plentiful, medium-​thick yellow noodles. We asked for them to go light on the spiciness, which they did. The soup was all red with the hot spicy oil, but it was juuust the right amount of kick! The beef had a lot of fat, so I didn’t eat all of it. I’d order this again, though.
We also had the house fried rice, which had your normal fried rice ingredients: peas, egg, onion, etc. they had bits of spam too. It was super tasty, although there’s probably MSG in it.
Service was prompt, the tea came in an awesome pot, not those typical silver pots in most Chinese restaurants. I will say the food doesn’t taste «clean,» so health-​conscious people probably want to steer clear, but eating out generally isn’t that healthy.

I cant remember the previous place that everyone seemed to love here except me who thought it was ok. Well, Dragon Garden has taken over and im personally more satisfied. Im going against the grain here to day ive had some of the better Chinese meals here in a while. As much as i love typos and wacky translations that theyve got, one of them was my favorite dish. Im talking the «Chicken gristle with chili pepper». It’s essentially the knee cartilage between the drumstick and thigh, some meat, with the large toasted Sichuan peppers. I couldnt stop eating it. Hell id come here just for that. Pork with garlic sauce, dan dan noodles, cumin lamb and beef tripe in chili oil were also enjoyable. Even though we came late they didnt try and rush us out like most Chinese joints and they were happy and attentive. Definitely im going to try other dishes here. Perhaps ill figure out what «chub» is, cause they seem to serve it two ways!

This is the best Szechuan restaurant in town. Love love love this place. Definitely come back for more yummy food.

very authentic sichuanese cuisine!!! in fact probably the only authentic one in South Bay! price is very reasonable! servings are huge! I can’t believe the rating is so low! probably not cater to the American taste, but if you like authentic Sichuan food, then gotta try this place!

Sigh, I am downgrading my rating after I found insects not once, but TWICE. The problem is that they don’t wash their vegetables properly. The non-​vegetable dishes are fine.
Dish #1 — Combination Seafood Soup Noodle — there were at least 30 bugs of all sizes. I took it back to the restaurant and showed them. They said it was probably due to the bok choy. I was issued a refund.
Dish #2 — Vegetable Tofu Soup — I decided to give them a second chance a few weeks later and ordered again. I’d say there were at least 10 insects in there (improvement?), most likely due to the big pea sprouts.
Probably won’t order from this place again unless they let me know that they’ve cleaned up their act.

重庆小面，水煮鱼，麻婆豆腐比较不错。总体味道不错，不过不够辣；价格合理，停车方便，就是第一次去不是特别好找
Reasonable price and easy to find parking. I recommend Chongqing Noodles, Mapo Tofu and spicy boiled fish.

This is the best «authentic» Sichuan spicy food place in the bay area hands down.
It is not tailored to american though. It is very authentic. I saw that was a problem for some people in the other reviews. They didn’t know what they signed up for. It is hard to say who is to blame.
The service is very slow when it is busy.

Wow. Really bad. The dish I ordered was not edible and they charged me for it!
I’ve worked in the area for 5 years and have eaten everywhere else, so I like to try new restaurants. The waiter at Dragon Garden said they’ve been open for a month.
I ordered number 7 on the lunch special menu, Chongqing Chicken. I figured that something this close to the top of the list was a safe bet. When the dish arrived all you could see was chopped red chili peppers. I figured there was some chicken underneath the layer of peppers, so figured I’d give it a shot.
There were bite-​sized chicken pieces, but as I tried to eat it, I realized it was mostly pieces of bone and very little meat. The bones were chopped to around an inch in size. Some bones actually had tiny fragments of meat attached, but anything that looked like a piece of meat was laden with bone fragments.
I really tried, but gave up and called the waiter over and let him know that I thought the plate wasn’t edible. He didn’t have much to say other than, that’s the way the dish is. I told him I’d choke if I tried to eat any more.
Then he asked me if I wanted something else. I figured he was trying to make this right. I said ok, how about mongolian beef. He brought it. (That was edible, but not much beyond that.)
At the end, the charge for the chicken bone dish was on the bill! I was shocked because the sounded like he had offered to replace the plate of chopped chicken bones, and he knew I left 90% of the dish on the plate. Had I known he was going to charge me, I would have just left.
When I told him he should not expect me to pay for something I couldn’t eat, he said it wasn’t his fault and that the boss wasn’t around. He seemed dumbfounded and did not make an ounce of effort to rectify the situation. He was more worried about the boss making him pay for the mistake himself. I told him his boss would want to know about this and that he should be trying to make his customers happy. He didn’t care.
Don’t bother with this place. They’ll be gone soon and nobody will care.

Went to eat at the Restaurant on the second day esp since they were advertizing 15% off for the opening.
Thought we could have a quick bite since there was only 1 other table with customers, so we opted to sit down — very warm in the place, fans working but no A/​C.
Very prettily ornate. Plenty of young staff, fairly new to service, I would guess
Sat down to order, No one came to take our order so I went to place the order. 5 mins later, we were told that they had no sweet and sour chicken as they had run out of alot of ingredients and were going to close soon (hours posted open 11am to 11.30pm M-​F).
Changed order
3 mins later were told that they had run out of broccoli
Ask for other items which we were told that they were out of the ingredients. Ended up prompting the server to let us know what they did have in stock. Ended up ordering and by then we had to leave in 15 mins to return to work so had the order to go.
Ordered the shrimp chow mein, cumin lamb and the Beef with mushrooms.
orders came out later, paid for meals, no discount was given :-(- bait and switch?
Orders came with the main and the 2 compartments we filled with rice, no vegetables or sauces given/​offered
May try this place again but for a new place that should be encouraging return clients and getting a good reputation, this place misses the mark by far