China Bistro

I ordered the walnut honey prawns lunch special. $ 9.50. It came with white rice, hot and sour soup, and an egg roll. The food was very fresh. Everything came piping hot and delicious. The hot and sour soup does have a different flavor to it. Maybe some tomato in it? The size of the shrimp are easily the largest in town. The pic isn’t entirely accurate because I’d eaten a couple before I remembered to take a pic. Oops. The price is a bit more than most in town for the lunch special but the quality is well worth it! They are trying out new things so give it a try. My friends ordered the orange chicken and said it was very good too. The food did take about 15 minutes but well worth it!

Ok. Probably not the best one that I have ever had, but man the taste is good for me. I ordered soup, beef, and fried rice, and everything is right up to my taste. It’s also reasonably priced and services are good as well. I heard that the chef is someone famous from China. Oh well, all I care is having a good meal and not paying too much for it, so it’s a 5 stars for me. Will definitely come back to this joint for a future meal.

Came here for the lunch special. It is only 8.50, but that is a plus. The credit card minimum was 20. The place was really empty. My food come out really fast. If you do togo you do not get the extra soup and what not.
I opened the container and like most other said the portion was tiny. I order the mongolian beef lunch special. Rice was fluffy and moist (rare for davis chinese resturants). Beef was pack with spicies and chewy. I say taste wise it is pretty good, but man the portion size is not worth for a college student’s budget. Will try this place again in the near future and see if the dine in experience is any better. I do not mind paying for good food, but just wish the portion was better.

All i can say is don’t go! The staff are completely uninterested in running a business, I’m not even sure they know they’re operating a restaurant… The food is terrible! That’s really all you need to know!

This Chinese restaurant is very different from ordinary American Chinese restaurants. The food is authentic and does not rely much on oil in cooking. The lamb soup and chicken dry pot were excellent. The fried rice was rather mediocre. Will return to explore other parts of the menu.

A dish we got that has a really weird translation called «Julienne veg» something, hilarious Google mistranslation. And when we got it, it tasted rotten and their water has strong tap smell so the dish came smelling like old tap water also. We asked them to take it back, and you won’t believe how much attitude the server gave us, she was like «that’s the way it is, it’s because it doesn’t suit your taste», very rude, we didn’t say it tasted bad, it tasted like it was going bad,(prolly because they have NO business). So we offered to order again, we ordered a chicken dish, and lo and behold! I heard the rudest comment from the server! She refused to put the order in for us because she said this dish was similar to the one we just sent back, what waiter refuses customer’s order??? Never experienced that kind of passive aggressiveness from a restaurant. Other pork rib stew dish we ordered came out with PINK and red colored pork, unappetizing and plain disgusting. Don’t come here if you want to be treated with basic human decency.

it is becoming worse and worse. Although we are the only guests, we still waited for a really long time. And it tastes awful. Sea food fried rice that costs $ 11 is only rice with a little egg and several shrimp. Won’t come again.

Service speed and quality is really variable. Sometimes it’s pretty good but sometimes it can take 25min for them to serve a cold dish… and the quelity of food is not so stable either… the meat is often undercooked when the place is packed… I rather have no food than food that is rushed.

Came here a few weeks ago. I occasionally went to Jade Garden (Previous restaurant in this location) and was interested in giving the new place a try.
Positives:
Friendly service, nice staff– they asked us how everything was and refilled our tea/​water
Authentic northern Chinese food. I am tired of the Americanized Chinese food in Davis so it was nice to have some good legit options. The fish fillet in soup was awseome!
Plenty of parking– it’s in a small plaza
Negatives:
Menu selection isn’t too big, and the menu layout could be improved
A little slow
Slightly expensive. The good food makes up for the cost, but the college students probably wouldn’t be able to come here all the time.

HAVE AGAIN: I had a spicy pork noodle dish — really good.
Fortunately, they had none of their lunch specials, which were labeled as «American.» Fortunate, because I would have ordered the General Chicken. And, they had no fish today. So, I looked around and ordered this pork noodle dish and really liked it. Skip the «American» dishes and experiment with what appear to be authentic Chinese cuisine!

Authentic northern Chinese food but it is very pricy with small portions. It has potential to be the best Chinese restaurant in Davis but they need to bring down the price and add more northern dishes.

Make way, long review ahoy!
Came here with my wife on Chinese New Year to celebrate, since we couldn’t do it this year with family. I noticed a sign on the door that said they would be closed from the 9^th through the 11^th (maybe, I can’t remember exactly) for Chinese New Year. We stepped inside at 7:45 (they close at 9) and found many of the tables covered in dirty dishes. A man was working on trying to clean them, but I would say half their tables were dirty. Nobody greeted us. I intentionally made eye contact with a couple of employees, and still nothing. We probably should have left.
While we were standing there waiting to be seated, there was a couple of people at a table, and they were absolutely doggin me. Hard. I thought they might want to throw down, but in hind sight, I think they were trying to tell us to run and leave this place with their eyes. I wish I could go back and thank them for their effort.
When we finally got a seat at a booth it took a long while to get menus and water. It wasn’t super busy. My water glass was rimmed with hard water, but I stuck with it as it might have been another 10 minutes before I could get a new glass, and I wasn’t about to give up now. Then the server tells us that they are out of everything on the «American Style» dishes. OK, I can still work with this… «Oh and we have no rice». Um, WTF kind of Chinese restaurant runs out of rice over an hour before closing? I still try and press on, my wife is getting increasingly agitated.
The menu is less than extensive. Hell, it fits on two pieces of paper… that’s fine. If your menu is less than extensive, you need to really bring it on the stuff you do have… and let me tell you, what they do have is expensive.
We ordered the dry pot chicken ($ 13.99), noodle with beef sauce aka beef soup ($ 8.99), and 8 pork dumplings ($ 6.99). The dry pot chicken was SPICY. I love spicy food and I thought the flavors were great. It was crispy and delicious. There was however, no indication that it was super spicy on the menu. My wife was unable to eat the chicken because of the spice level. Also, it is essentially 4 – 5 chicken wings cut in half… for $ 14…pretty outrageous to me.
The beef soup was very plain and had very little beef in it. I’m going to be honest, I enjoyed it, because it reminded me of this super plain soup my grandma would make me when I was sick. Should a restaurant be making super plain soup for sick children? Probably not, unless they were giving it away. Also the price was pretty excessive. It’s probably a $ 5 – 6 portion of soup.
The dumplings were not very good either. My wife asked me «I wonder if they buy these at Ranch 99». At a little under a $ 1/​dumpling I was pretty underwhelmed. We had to argue over who was going to finish them since we didn’t want any leftovers and we’re too cheap to leave food.
Can most of this be due to it being a newer restaurant? Maybe, but they have been open a couple months. Maybe it was due to the long layoff that they were planning… but out of rice? Seriously? This combined with small portions and high price and there is the perfect storm of me not returning. Maybe if they are still around in few years and have time to iron things out. Like a Chinese restaurant having rice. You know, small nuances.
Oh, and one other small thing. When the waitress brought our chopsticks and napkins, she put them down, turned to me, and asked me «Oh, do you need a fork? (Looking right at me only, my wife is Chinese)». It initially rubbed me the wrong way (and my wife too) because it came off condescending, but it could have just be a «lost in translation» moment of innocence. I’m half Thai, and I know how to use chopsticks very well; furthermore many of my white, latino, black, etc. friends know how to use chopsticks. I think it would be best to wait for a person to ask, so as to not insult the customers abilities. I understand that some people cannot use them, but trust me, they’ll ask. They are not going to just sit there with overpriced food sitting in front of them, not eating because they can’t use chopsticks.
TL;DR — Expensive small portions, that were mostly flavorless, do not make this a restaurant worth stopping in for.

0 star if I can. Are this business fucking kidding me? I came here for one. And there are many tables. They said I need to wait because I was one. Seriously? Many people came after me had the table. I left and never come again. piece of junk.

Authentic food but very pricey. The portion is small too.
I would like to have the same dishes when I go to Sac.

Food is decent. Ordered the beef middle soup, dumplings, and the walnut shrimp. The flavors are there but have been toned down. So if you’re not in the mood for strong flavors, this is the place for you. But I think the food is a little too pricy than what I’m used to.
Service was quick despite having 2 servers. The server was nice.
Went around noon on a Friday. The restaurant was about 60% full.

Not impressed, wanted soup on a cold day and they said buy the lunch special and the soup is free. I said but I only want soup… can I get a cup of soup. server said No. I said can you please ask, she said NO. We left and went elsewhere.

Actual, legitimate, authentic and really great (northern) Chinese food. As proof of how authentic it is… the menu actually has an «American style dish» section for the Americanized-​stuff like general’s chicken, honey walnut prawns. That means the rest of the menu…? Authentic!
Supposedly the chef is a former part-​owner of a well-​known restaurant chain in Beijing.
They just opened and we came by to try it out. We actually primarily had the all you can eat Beijing-​style hot pot, since we have been craving that… it’s basically a simple broth with slices of fresh raw lamb + tofu + veggies, which you dip yourself. It’s perfect for a cold wintery night. I think they did great, and would recommend it to folks willing to try something new… very healthy.
We also had the lion’s head meatballs （狮子头), northern style in great broth. Highly recommend.
Also saw a lot of other dishes I’ve been craving and will be back to try: dry pot (干锅), 水煮鱼, 白肉炖粉条。They also have plans to add soy milk, pancakes, other «breakfast» goods.
The owner came by to introduce herself. Very nice lady, and they intend to use only the best ingredients etc. If they live up to it, and if Davis comes out and supports it… this isn’t just another local Chinese restaurant, but probably one of the best options in Northern California.

Farewell Jade Garden. Welcome China Bistro.
Came in during their second day open. Staff was friendly, and made food to order fairly quickly. Food is well flavored for what you expect in Davis. Lunch specials run from 11am to 3pm and come with an eggroll, soup, and steamed rice. Minus one star that cause specials only come with steamed rice when Jade used to offer with chow mein or fried rice. Eggrolls taste better than Jade’s. Will definitely be back to try out some of their other dishes.