The East

The East was pretty much my go-​to option for reasonably priced takeout. Food quality is rarely stellar, but almost always satisfying.
The sushi is a great deal (although probably not very authentic) and almost always fresh. It’s the reason we come here and not the cheaper Great Wall down the road (although though apparently the two are owned by the same people). The eel is an especially great deal.
As for Chinese food: pork is usually the safest choice. Chicken is often stringy, thinly sliced, and Mc-​Nuggety in texture. Order beef if you’re a gamblin’ man. I’ve had both excellent and terrible experiences with beef at the East. Beware of the Chef’s Specialities section of the menu — the one with all the photos and fanciful descrip to ones — as the entrees are all almost twice the price of the American-​Chinese standbys (General Tso’s, Moo Shu, Lo Mein, etc) that are tucked away further in the rear of the menu. The specialties have nicer plating if you’re at the restaurant, but the food quality is the same.
Although there have been not — so great times, overall I’m glad for The East’s existence. Also the interior is spacious and lovely. Great for groups.

This restaurant is as good as it gets, their fusion of chinese/​japanese is refreshing around this neighborhood. The service was great/​attentive and has a comfortable environment! TIP: Their rolls are always fresh and never disappoints!

Worst Chinese food EVER!
Look, I’ll be the first person to give props to my people if they deserve it and I’ll always try to help out my people if I can, but I can not with a clear conscious give this place anything higher than 1 star.
I ordered the dragon and phoenix and the BF order sushi. The dragon and phoenix was laughably bad. The sesame chicken contained minimal chicken. It was the thinnest sliced chicken I’ve ever seen and the texture of the chicken was very off. Mcdonald’s chicken nuggets are less spongy than the chicken here. The sauce on the chicken– it was really more sweet and sour sauce. Not good, by any stretch of the imagination. The dragon part was a portion about the size of a palm of shrimp with mixed veggies in, what is suppose to be, white sauce. The sauce was minimal to almost non existent. This travesty cost me almost $ 20. The BF’s sushi was ok, not too bad but not great either.
I’ve had better Chinese food at mom and pop Chinese restaurants.
I do want to end this on a good note, the décor’s really nice.

Did some takeout Maki (Crazy Dragon) here and it was good, included some rice and I think some spring rolls but not sure. It was ready fairly fast and was a good meal.

I tried it for lunch. It’s the so so ist Chinese food. I don’t know. Maybe the standards are not that high for the area.

The East is literally amazing, the quality of the food as well as variety is worth while. Happy with the customer service, which is always welcoming and awesome. I recommend this restaurant to any who enjoys awesome food. Well done definitely come back again and again.
Garrett /​
Parsippany Nj

$ 17 for this?! I am visiting Great Barrington from Philadelphia, so I wasn’t sure where to go for Chinese food. The menu sounded great… I ordered the Triple Sesame Combination: «Lightly fried jumbo shrimp, scallops, and slices white meat chicken in unbelievable sesame sauce.»
When I got home and opened the package I let out a big, «Oh come on!» Battered and fried in a deep fryer, the chicken was chewy, the seafood, also battered and fried, had a fishy taste to it… the broccoli was steamed with no seasoning, presumably because I was supposed to soak everything in the «unbelievable sesame sauce.» Well, as you can sort of see from the picture, it’s duck sauce from the bottle with a handful of sesame seeds thrown on top.
After telling my local resident friend about my experience, she said I should have gone to Koi… so the next day, I did. She was so right. For the same price, I got a truly delicious pineapple chicken dish (wish I took a pic) and had enough to make two meals out of it. They even gave me two pints of brown rice. The owner greeted me when I walked in and I could tell right away he runs a tight ship. I hate leaving negative reviews but hopefully this will help the next unknowing tourist make the right choice.

Pleasantly surprised by the lovely ambiance, great food, good service and value. I have driven by dozens of times and after reading the positive reviews I thought my wife and I would give it a chance. We were not disappointed. Had a spicy lobster roll, crispy duck and sesame beef. All were delicious! Tip– order a BBC Steel Rail for a clean fresh beer to wash it all down and be ready for a big surprise. So stuffed! They also appear to do a brisk take out business which I now will be part of. Do not hesitate to try this place!

You must try this place! Spoiled by the choices in Boston area, I prepared myself for a run of mill Chinese restaurant during our family foliage trip to the Berkshire. Boy, was I wrong and pleasantly surprised! The décor is beautiful, and the food is outstanding — it doesn’t take second vs any Boston area Chinese restaurant. The crispy duck is delicious, moo shu chicken tasty, beef Ho Fun tender, Shanghai bok choi fresh, eel avocado roll lovely. Our waitress is very attentive even though there was a shortage of staff. I highly recommend this restaurant.

I highly recommend this place. The food is outstanding, and the waitstaff is friendly and attentive, without being smothering. The mei-​fun curry noodles are my favorite – very flavorful! You will not be disappointed. The ambiance is also beautiful.

The best Asian cuisine! Delicious foods, fresh sushi, & great service!
our favorite restaurant to eat. (Traditional chinese vegetable, & teriyaki salmon)
Highly recommend it to others.

The service was horrible. The food was overpriced, and over cooked (I suspect the quality of the meat was too questionable to cook appropriately). Our waitress made three total visits to our table over the course of the meal, this includes taking our order and dropping off the check. It was not a busy night, we could see her standing by the front counter chatting with a friend the entire time we were eating. When we left a tip commensurate with the service we received, the manager stopped us on our way out and refused to let us leave until we explained ourselves.
I will NEVER return to this establishment and urge anybody interested in trying their luck at The East to look elsewhere. Great Barrington has no shortage of amazing dining experiences, The East is what you get when you start really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Great atmosphere, great staff, great food! I have been going here for years, and I will continue to go back! The food is excellent and the sushi is wonderful. You can either sit at the sushi bar or at a table, and the restaurant is elegantly decorated and relaxing. The crab rangoons are TO DIE FOR (I try them at every Chinese restaurant I go to, and these are by far the best.) I love The East, great quality for a great price!

Delicious!
Our favorite Asian cuisine in the Berkshires. As longtime locals I value the fact that this restaurant is excellent year round. They have fabulous service, cool interior, family run and the food is delicious and affordable.
They have yummy vegetarian dishes as well as meat dishes.
I love that we can get sushi as well as some standard Chinese dishes.

What a surprise!!! We were pleasantly surprised by how good our meal was. The food was all well-​prepared. The meat was tender and full of flavor. The vegetables were nicely prepared. On the healthy vegetarian plate, the food was deliciously steamed and the sauce was on the side. Brown and white rice were both available and delicious. Next time we are in the area, we will definitely stop by again. Kid friendly and delicious well-​prepared food. Best and healthiest chinese food I have had in a long time.

I decided to give this place a try the other night based upon the positive reviews here on Unilocal and doing so turned out a rather unfortunate decision. I ordered my dinner along with one of my coworkers, we ordered an entrée of General Tso’s chicken, fried pork dumplings, a side of chicken fried rice and beef fried rice and won ton soup and the total came to 37 $.
I was optimistic despite the higher than expected price tag for dinner and went into the meal with high hopes. I was sorely disappointed. The first part of my meal was the General Tso’s chicken, a dish renowned for its spice often with whole pepper chunks to enhance the heat — mine was nothing of the sort, I didn’t detect even the slightest heat and the chicken was actually sweet! Not only this but for a higher price tag versus a typical takeout restaurant the food was mediocre in terms of quality. I decided to pry my chicken with my fork and the inside was a mix of brown meat and fat. The entire thing was mushy and I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t fresh — more on this later.
We also ordered fried rice and there certainly was rice but the meat was very sparse and even that was bland and all but devoid of flavor. This was sadly the most enjoyable part of the meal because at the very least the rice had substance and I could drown away my discontent with duck sauce.
Finally the Won Ton soup, a staple of every Chinese restaurant anywhere — the dumplings were mush and there was hardly any meat inside.
The kicker and probably the most disturbing shortcoming was the fried noodles. You know, those things that they stuff into every takeout bag to give you something to munch on — normally I am a big fan of fried noodles but these were boring and they felt slightly stale.
The final nail on this very disappointing coffin was that after my very mediocre experience I awoke with vomiting and diarrhea. I looked through the reviews that convinced me to give this place a try and the most recent one was from the end of 2011. Well folks, it is 2013 now and I’d hardly say the standards have been kept.
This experience was so poor that it prompted me to sign up for an account and share my disappointment. I hope that this review will help to incite some positive change. Until that change happens, you’re much better off going to eat at Koi restaurant, that place is easily one of the best Chinese food places in the area and their General Tso’s made my eyes water. It was excellent.

The East is clean, and quick. Their food has a healthier taste to it compared to other restaurants in the Berkshires. It is not spicy. I wish it were more spicy!

Only in thear once very dirty:(

I cant believe that this place has only 2 reviews so far. We came back a year later and they renovated the interior. The renovation looks great. The bathrooms are luxurious (for the Berkshires) and spotless.
The food was still all good. Mooshi veggies was excellent. We’ll be back next year again.

The East is one of the gems of Great Barrington for a few reasons.
First, the service is always excellent. The waiters and waitresses are prompt, attentive, and unobtrusive. The interior of the restaurant is dim but very clean and attractive. Some of the booths in the rear even have cushions.
I’ve been here several times in the past year, and I’m always happy with what I get. When I go for lunch, my favorite dish is the fried tofu in General Tso’s sauce with broccoli. It also comes with your choice of white or brown rice. I often get a spring roll as an appetizer. The portions are generous, and the food is hot and fresh. And cheap! The last time I went for lunch, I had the spring roll appetizer and the tofu dish, and including tax and tip, I spent $ 8.25. That’s untouchable! My only regret is that the General’s tofu doesn’t appear on the dinner menu in addition to the lunch menu.
The East also has a wide assortment of sushi. When you are seated, you are given both the regular menu and the sushi menu. Like the food from the lunch and dinner menus, the sushi is fresh and well prepared. I’ve never had a bad experience after having it on multiple occasions. The prices are low as well. For about $ 4.00, you can get a relatively simple fish roll, like smoked salmon, cut into eight pieces. This is much cheaper (and better tasting) than the sushi rolls you can buy to-​go at local grocery stores.
Even though The East is not a fancy restaurant, it merits five stars. There’s nothing negative at all to say about it. Come here if you’re in GB!