Formosa Chinese Restaurant

As a Filipino, I’m a bit biased about the restaurant. I’ve been going here on and off for 14 years. The food is really good with the price. Of course the Filipino dishes is my favorite. My friend likes the Chinese food here also. The general tsao doesn’t have to much breading and not too greasy. My family comes here at least once a week.

I don’t know how this place gets good reviews. I’ve had no good Chinese experiences so far while living here in South Carolina. But this was bad.
General chicken was AWFUL. It tasted like someone poured franks hot sauce in it and instead of broccoli there were stringy onions. The pork lo mein noodles were horrible and tasted strange. The crab Rangoon wasn’t bad, but 29 dollars total for the worst Chinese I’ve ever had in my entire life! I could have paid that and had a decent meal elsewhere. My mistake. I’ll never go back.

This place has hardcore authentic FILIPINO dishes like pancit, lumpia, sisig, dinuguan, sweet n sour fish, and more… they even have halo halo!!! And they all taste very good!!! Staff is very friendly as well!!!

My gf and I ate from the Filipino menu instead of the Chinese. The meat dishes were very flavorful and tender. Everything had a home — made, soul food, hope in the wall feel to it. The owner is very sweet. Their filipino menu selection has enough variety to warrant another visit.

Giving this place 5 stars.
One, because you can get legit Filipino food here. And two, my good friend’s family owns this. And you can tell that they put their time into their recipes. Okay, so what. It’ll be biased, but I’m speaking because they’re really nice people even before they became friends of ours.
Any time I visit GC, my family would come here if we didn’t want to cook Filipino food that would normally take a long time to prepare and cook.
It’s in the Food Lion plaza behind Stratford High. Great food and great people. And for the low reviews, it’s probably because you ordered something that they don’t necessarily specialize in much.

Finally caught this business whilst it was open and it was not worth the wait. Another business on Unilocal in this area that has not matched up with reviewers. I’m starting to wonder if the people out here just have awful taste in food. This place was not good in taste, value, or advertising. The woman was nice but gave us food that did not have ingredients she claimed to be present: nasty surprise for a vegetarian to bite into a «veggie spring roll» and get a mouthful of some stringy meat. The vegetable noodles were almost all noodles and no veggies and really only seemed to be flavored with soy sauce. The fried rice was also very bland and dry. The food was also packed poorly and had leaked out into the carrier box. I really hoped after reading the reviews that this would finally be the gem we were looking for, and again it was opposite of that. Such poor quality food! 2 stars for the lady’s kindness even if she lied about the veggie rolls :(

Totally LOVE this place! The food is amazing! Live the adobo chicken, Chinese Vegetable Soup, Lumpia and all the other dishes!

Three of us went for an early dinner on Saturday. Very small dining room, only eight tables, but take-​out business is brisk.
We shared an order of lumpia. I thought they needed a bit more seasoning, but the wrappers were crisp and the dipping sauce was good. I would order them again.
I got the Sinigang and was disappointed. The pork was short ribs, I believe, and that requires more work than I care for in removing all the bones, fat, and other inedible bits. I was told it was a good soup-​as-​meal that had tamarind in it. Honestly, I couldn’t taste a bit of tamarind. The pork had an «off» odor to it, though it tasted okay for boiled meat. It had radishes, cabbage, green beans, and tomatoes. I’m glad there was plenty of rice. I would not order it again.
My friends ordered two entrees that were great. The Pork Adobo was yummy! Rich flavor with a nice gravy. This dish has onions. I give it an A and would order it again.
The third entrée was the Chicken with Black Bean Sauce. It was also great! A bit on the sweet side, but I liked that. Very nice sauce, plenty of chicken, and a dish I would definitely order the next time.
The owner served us and was funny and friendly.

If you want authentic Filipino food, this is the place to go! The hubby and I have ordered everything from the Kaldereta to the Lechon, to the Kare Kare and the Pancit and it has all been fantastic. This restaurant is owned by a Filipino family that remembers you when you order often!
I know it says that it is a Chinese restaurant when you walk through the door, but definitely bypass the Chinese items on the menu. The quality of those are mediocre to downright bad.
So if you are craving something besides your standard SC Asian fare, check out Formosa!

The food was pretty good, however my wife ordered chicken chow mein and it was served in a way neither of us were used to seeing, there were no noodles at all. I would certainly give this place another try.

Great Filipino dishes. You will not find anything as authentic as this little place.

We visited this place once in a while. We love this family owned and operated little place. Food is enjoyable. Would visit again if we still lived in charleston.

Really great Filipino food. Reminds me of when I was stationed on Diego Garcia. Delicious, authentic. My only complaint was it was hot in there due to the 95 degree sc weather. The staff were family oriented and very warm and welcoming

Love this place! Family owned/​run, and yummy! Chinese with a Filipino twist.
Formosa has individualized, fresh portions vs. buffet style. (Most Chinese restaurants in this area of SC are buffet style.)
I love this place because the food has always been good, reasonably priced, and the lady always remembers my order!

Great if you like hard-​to-​find filipino food like diniguan (a blood/​meat dish) and sisig. That’s mainly why my husband likes to come here. I usually stick to the more not-​so-​authentic stuff like general tso’s chicken. Hahah… they do make delicious shanghai lumpia and halo-​halo (when in season). The place itself is kinda small since it’s tucked away in the corner in the shopping center, but the lady who owns the place is really nice and she remembers her customers (and their orders). =)