Chili Garden

The food here is so-​so, and the service is terrible. The carpet had garbage laying around. Our waitress was nowhere to be seen. And we had to wait forever to get our seats. They also served us soup, but didn’t provide any bowls or spoons! They really needed to get more waitresses/​busboys/​cooks on the night I went.

The food here is cheap and is your average chinese food. Since there’s «Chili» in the restaurants name, we were looking forward to a bit of a kick in its dishes. None of the dishes we ordered had any hint of spices so it was a bit of a disappointment but the food was still good. This place is right where I live so if I ever need a quick run for Chinese, I would consider getting take-​out here. it’s a cheap eat (my kind of deal) :)

It says grand opening! now it says closing! a phở place next?
3 for 16.50 had the salt and pepper tilapia (lotsa pepper)
also tried the pork/​shrimp/​egg dumpling, but the wrapper was a little doughy.
northern style cooking
congee on the watery side
had the clear flat noodle with pork, which was so so
also the strings beans with tofu

3 items for $ 16.50. WHY COOK?
Love their banner.
Surprisingly it wasn’t bad. Not greasy, low sodium, & it was fairly easy to order:
Pork w/​winter melon soup $ 6.99, two takeout containers worth, very tasty.
Fish fillet soup $ 6.99, ok, but I wouldn’t order again, only 1, & just fish ‘n tofu.
3 for $ 16.50 menu:
*Braised Beef Noodle Soup, liked the fresh bok choy and the fragrant broth.
*Chicken w/​hot & spicy sauce (white meat) LOVED the white meat option and the fresh ingredients of the dish. Contained: bamboo, woodear & chestnuts.
*Napa cabbage w/​dried shrimp, portion was TINY, but it was not overcooked or glazed with cornstarched sauce. Very good. The cabbage was chopped up nicely.
Extra bonus pts:
–Their soup is placed in the red paper cylindrical containers, much sturdier then the styrofoam.
–Wasn’t running for the water after my meal.
–Quite light for Chinese.
Just opened about two months ago according to the staff. CASH only.

Yeah a big NO. No on the portion & No on the authenticity. I love Hunan and Sichuan food, Grew up on it and this place is not that good! The to-​go portions are tiny and filled w/​½ box of jalapeño peppers. Let me tell you that Sichuan & Hunan food does NOT use green jalapeño chilies to spice up the dish. Taste is ridiculous that even on classic Sichuan pork they can mess it up! It only taste like Chinese food because its stir fried but all the sauces are wrong wrong wrong!!! So Do NOT mistaken this place for an authentic Hunan/​Sichuan place.

One problem on
is that people just give unfair reviews when they don’t know what they are ordering. For example, the most recent review here by Robert L. complained that this Szechuen Hunan restaurant screwed up a Cantonese dish. Come on, people, If you want Cantonese food, you don’t walk in a restaurant with a name that starts with «Chili». If you cannot tell a Szechuen restaurant from a Cantonese restaurant, don’t eat Chinese. Or just don’t give misleading ratings.
I have only been to this place once and I think their Szechuen and Hunan dishes are really good though I am not an expert in Hunan cuisine either. I am Cantonese myself but I have not tried their Cantonese dishes because I think those are irrelevant. In a Hunan restaurant, you need to judge by their spicy dishes. If you don’t like spicy food, why go to a Hunan restaurant to begin with?

I went to this restaurant because of the reviews on this page. I ordered 3 dishes (sweet and sour chicken, sweet and sour fish fillet and vegetable deluxe) from the to-​go menu. The sweet and sour fish fillet was quite bad. The fish lacked any texture. It basically just fell apart and destroyed the dish. The sweet and sour chicken was slightly better but the batter had no crisp to it. The vegetable deluxe was the best out of the 3 dishes. It is stir fry consisting of broccoli, baby corn, mushrooms. It is a simple Cantonese dish and I cannot imagine how any restaurant can muck this particular dish up. If you are into a 3-​dish super saver package, I’d suggest New Yong Kang on 40 900 Fremont Blvd. They have a bigger menu and the quality of the dishes and materials are better.

Wasn’t too busy here when we went for lunch on a Wednesday afternoon around 1 p.m. We had a group of 11 and there was a big table that sat us right away. Service was quick, food was quick.
We got a plethora of dishes which included veggie chow mein, veggie fried rice, kung pao chicken (minus the chicken), sauteed eggplant with garlic, tangerine chicken, sauteed broccoli with garlic, mabo tofu and hot and sour soup. This is supposedly Mandarin/​Hunan cuisine but I’ve definitely had better.
You can tell that the food was cooked in a hurry… a little too messy with a little too much flavor (more sauce is not always better).
But if you’re with a big group and don’t want to spend much then this place is perfect if you eat family style.

They have a $ 16.99 to go special where you can chose 3 of 40 dishes and get a few egg rolls (to go only). We tried this out this weekend and it was pretty good. The Kong Pao and cashew chicken use dark meat (fine with me) and use lots of veggies. Dishes had sauce on the heavy side but not as greasy as you’d expect at this price point. Also had the beef and broccoli which was above acceptable but not as great as estbay’s china garden beef (same price range but they have great beef!) Of course like many Chinese restaurants its kinda annoying that there is a Chinese only menu that looked like it had many other options. I give the food above average quality (3.5 stars) but the value, speed and quality of service bump it up to 4-​stars in my book!

We just got back from having dinner there. Maybe lunch is the better time to go!
We ordered the Gourmet Dinner. The Hot and Sour Soup was good. The beef appetizer was terrible. I think the beef was going bad.
The Basil Chicken was the better of the two main dishes, although I’m wondering if they just reheated these dishes from lunch time. The Mongolian Beef did not taste good. Again, I’m wondering if the beef was going bad.
I hate to give a restaurant a bad review, but for $ 25.00 (for two), dinner should be better than this.

This is probably one of the best Chinese restaurants in Fremont. The food, service, and atmosphere are all good. You can’t go wrong with this place.

A good place for lunch. The décor is attractive and bright. The food is pretty tasty. They have always been accomodating to a large group for our work. We always enjoy the eggplant (and I dont even like eggplant, but I do here!) and the basil chicken.