Qing Zhen

I am struggling a lot with this review because I really wanted to like QingZhen and was excited to have a
voucher for this place.
Unfortunately, I was way too weirded out by my experience there. I feel like I’d go back but. only to try to redeem them? I really want to like them, but it was one of the most confusing restaurant experiences I’ve ever had.
It is a little bit suspect to go into a restaurant at 7 on a Friday night and be the only customers there. But our hostess/​waitress was super friendly. She wasn’t Chinese or Middle Eastern, but I didn’t going to hold that against her. XD
The inside was empty and quiet, but it was pretty nice. Colorful round Chinese lanterns hung throughout and there were some colorful fans up on the wall, too. It’s not a very large space, but that was probably for the best given how empty the restaurant was at the time. However, our glasses were a bit dirty and our cutlery was a bit spotty, so that kind of set the tone. =/​
The menu… is really weird and confusing. I had the most puzzled expression on my face throughout most of my meal. I flipped open and there’s pad thai under the «Noodles» section. Thai curries are listed.
Also, there’s pizza and burgers.
This freaked me out a little, because I have not had good experiences at Chinese restaurants that offer random other cuisines? Pizza and burgers is extra random.
Things just kind of went weird from there. We got the complimentary jasmine tea, but it was brewed really strong, which my dad brought up to our waitress. She was super nice and brought us a less strongly brewed pot, but she took away our teacups in the meantime, which seemed a little unnecessary to me since I didn’t hate it or anything. Also, we got those little coffee stirrers? But they’re Chinese-​style teacups. So… that was awkward. But very nice service.
We decided to be positive, though, so my dad and I ordered 2 soups, the chicken corn soup and the tom yum kai (Thai hot&sour soup) with chicken. These were fine. Chicken corn soup was pretty standard, and I’m not a big fan of hot&sour, so I didn’t have much of that. Our soups took kind of a long time to come out, though, as we placed those orders first to start our meal.
Then we ordered the pad thai with chicken (I was craving pad thai, so I wasn’t going to question its place on the menu), shrimp in hot garlic sauce, and beef sukhothai. My dad was SUPER disappointed that the menu wasn’t very extensive and had no vegetable section, but our waitress told us the sukhothai had the most veggies of the entrees, so we ordered that.
— Shrimp in hot garlic sauce was probably the best dish. It was listed as being very spicy, but it wasn’t. It had a kind of sour thing going on, and was pretty good with a little coating. But it wasn’t very spicy, and we were kind of surprised that it had vinegar in its sauce.
— The beef sukhothai was not very good. The portion was really small, and there were hardly any veggies in it! My dad asked the waitress why and she asked if he wanted a side of vegetables to supplement it, which my dad said yes to. THEN she brings us this plate the size of an actual entrée dish (with the actual entrée being served to us on what should’ve been the side order dish) full of veggies, which was really nice of her and the kitchen, I thought. The beef was crispy but cooked kind of weird, and this was ALSO sour. I don’t remember if it was supposed to be, but at this point we’re kind of tired of sour?
— The pad thai was not very good. The noodles were undercooked, and THIS WAS ALSO SOUR. I don’t know why all of our dishes were sour but it was really annoying. This was NOT pad thai. It was a decent noodle dish but calling it pad thai is super misleading. I actually didn’t mind this dish much but just… it wasn’t pad thai.
I don’t know. I really wanted to like this place. The food wasn’t TERRIBLE, but it was really confusing and similar-​tasting (as in everything was vinegar-​y) and not that good. Also, we ordered 2 Thai dishes from a halal Chinese joint. The inside was nice, but a little iffy, and the service was really nice. We suspect that they only had one cook at the time from how slow our food came out.
It was just so confusing. Not quite Chinese food. The most halal thing was that they didn’t serve pork? I just… I just don’t know. I can’t give stars on colorful decorations and a nice server alone, I’m afraid.

Went to Qing Zhen a few months ago, the food is mediocre, but the staff is terrible. My coworkers and i went to try the lunch buffet and the food is what you expect for $ 6…but when the waitress tries to charge each person $ 10 for the buffet it really puts a bitter mood on things. I have never gone back and never will

I miss the Indian-​esque Chinese restaurant that opened a couple of spots down from this restaurant many years ago (same weird out-​of-​the-​way shopping center where they play cricket in the parking lot (I know! Word to the wise: park far away.)). It changed management a couple of times and the flavors weren’t consistent. I miss their ginger chicken, though. :-(
So basically, I was DYING for another place like this to open up and I’m glad to say this place is a fantastic replacement. I first tried QingZhen’s food at a birthday party that was catered by them. The food was pretty good and I was intrigued. My friends insisted that this place was worth a visit.
Our family finally decided to try it out this weekend. We had the Gen Tsao’s chicken which was a little spicy and very good. It was dark meat chicken (uh, which I LOVE) and there were no ooey-​gooey cornstarch batter bits in the food which made me very happy. The chicken was perfectly battered – and not overcooked.
We also got the sweet and sour chicken. I asked for white meat chicken instead of dark meat because other folks in our family like white meat and I decided to be magnanimous. The guy taking my order said it was no problem. It wasn’t the average desi-​style super-​bright-​pink sweet and sour chicken that I was expecting. For example: there was pineapple and lychee in the sauce. That’s right – lychee! I had just the sauce on my fried rice the next day for lunch and it was awesome. Speaking of the fried rice, it wasn’t hard and dry (pet peeve of mine) and it had good flavor.
The chicken lo mein was awesome mainly because the kids loved it. That works for me.
I’m itching to go back and try more dishes like the ginger chicken and the soups. Maybe this weekend? Who knows. ;-)