China Garden

I tell you what, if a zombie apocalypse ever hits and you can break the windows to get in and cook food with what was left, then definitely go here. Otherwise, don’t waste your breath ordering, time waiting, or «cash only» money.
I called and ordered delivery at 7:00. 8:00 roams around and I’m starving. I call to check in and hear, «Yes, it’s on it’s way. We don’t have it in the system because it went out.» Oh okay, coolsies. EXCEPT IT WASN’T. It wasn’t coming, and by the time he called me at 8:30 to tell me he never placed my order but can send it now, I was hangry AF. But if it’s free it’s for me, so let’s let them deliver. HA… they still wanted me to pay for it! Yeah um, NO.
Moral of the story: Order from Great Chow. You’re welcome.

First off Food is pretty good! Great lunch specials. Not much room to eat inside as its meant for takeout. Same beatup table and chairs from the 1990s. I moved to Arizona and was back and excited to have my favorite chinese food but really not best service. Guy at counter seemed sour. Maybe a bad day but I got the impression like i was bothering him? Do they not want my business? God forbid you say hello or thank you after handing me the food. Again. Great food but work on your damn people skills if you expect people to come back. Typical arrogant Boston attitude.

China Garden is your typical American Chinese takeout. However there isn’t a lot of variety. I called for takeout and got a roast pork fried rice. It was pretty average. The prices are quite reasonable and they’re on time. When they say 10 minutes, they mean it! I probably wouldn’t come back. There are other places around the area, but I just came here because it was in walking distance.
OH! Cash Only people… there is an ATM across the street though

As my husband keeps saying «quality and quantity»! We loved the dishes from China Garden. The prices are decent, and when you consider how much left overs you will have, it is well worth it.
*thisis a CASH ONLY place. You can also call ahead and avoid the crowd and the wait.
We ordered the hot and sour soup– gobbled it down. We also got beef chow mein and sweet and sour chicken. Both excellent choices.
Everything is freshly cooked as you order and they are so effecient that you’ll wait no more than 5 minutes during rush hour.

I live close by been going here for years it is consistently good tasty and hot. If you want good clean takeout this it the place to go. best egg rolls around. Ok just ordered their again let me say this place is my go to Chinese food place but they could put more meat in their dishes all veggies and sauce and the beef dishes are always tough But the apps are always very good !

This place is by far the best Chinese take out place I have been.
The price here is unbeatable for the amount of food you get.
I mean the food is very very good.
One mistake you should not make is to try to sit down here. This place is take out only really unless you are with a group of 4 guys. Then there will be space for you. What i mean is don’t get deceived that you can sit down at this place, it is literally a hole in the wall, and one table.
So just order the take-​out, get stuffed with food, and feel good afterwards about life.
Also the guy who takes your order, cracks me up everytime. Why? Go check it out for yourself.

MSG MSG MSG!!! I thought I was going to die. They use this old type food additive. Most people do not even know why they are sick or blame it on the food. NO its the MSG.
Food wise they are great but using this additive is so unnecessary it todays foods.

I decided to try this place after reading the reviews and It’s a solid greasy spoon Chinese place. Sometimes I like authentic and sometimes I like Americanized. As stated in other reviews the guy who takes your order is all business with an upbeat attitude, food’s always ready when I get there and the order’s are consistently accurate. I don’t normally care about egg rolls but theirs are very good. Like some have said, I think they’re made there. There appetizers are all good. Tried the Lo Mien, Beef and pork fried rice, all very good. It

This place is probably one of the best chinese take out places i’ve been in a while. Its surprising to see a chinese take out place that is rated more than 3 stars with over 10 reviews. Surprisingly a lot of people order from this place, so it must be pretty good
I got what seems to be their specialty. I got the #18 which came with fried rice, egg roll, 3 chicken wings and 2 spare ribs. First of all the fried rice that usually comes with take out restaurants taste like shit. They are usually hard and tasteless. This fried rice was actually very flavorful and quite soft, which always makes a meal more enjoyable. The chicken wings were hot and sizzling when i ate them which you know they make them fresh. Now time to try the spare ribes which was the bread and butter of this restaurant. What i imagined it to be was tough to chew and tasteless, what it actually tasted like was very flavorful, tender, and sauced! It was very pleasant to eat and chew. Never really tasted anything like this but it was something worth paying for.
The place is cash only so i recommend you having enough cash before you come to this place. With that being said, this place is def worth coming back to and trying other things on their menu.

Me and my family love this place! Love the boneless spare ribs with white rice! Scallion pancakes are good as well.

An old favorite! I grew up eating this Chinese and the place is still great. I think this restaurant is as old as the city of Malden! Seriously. Well at least 30 years old. This area of Highland Ave has seen better days, but this place has still survived. You have to understand what it is to appreciate it: a basic Chinese take out where appetizer items are the best. You walk up to this standing room pick-​up counter and that’s it. You can see them cooking in the back. They are known for their spare ribs, pork strips, egg rolls, and chicken fingers. So that is what you order there. Throw in a box of rice or lo mein and you make a meal out of it. Trust me, just pick a few items from the appetizers or no-​brain it and get the pu pu platter. They are all reasonably priced so you can get several items and will probably have a few left overs. This is NOT the place to attempt to order some kind of Chinese main course dinner or you will probably be disappointed.

Not good — just picked up a bunch of items — they are terrible — ratings here should be double checked because I went here because of the 4 stars it’s not worth 2– stay away

I have gotten take out from here a bunch of times. The egg roll and boneless spareribs are excellent. Their vegetarian dishes are also very good along with their orange beef and other stir fry’s. I would give it more then 3 stars if it wasn’t for their fried rice which I did not care for and their moo shoo which is only so so. That being said the other things I have tried have been good. If you are looking for cheap fast take out that’s open late you won’t be disappointed.

I have to say… I’ve been trying Chinese Food all throughout Boston, New York… and China Garden is still by far my favorite. Everywhere else I go, I find myself saying… «It was good, but it’s no China Garden.» I’ve moved away from the area and cannot find anything comparable near me. It is not gourmet, and maybe it isn’t real, authentic Chinese food… but they have my favorite boneless spare ribs, rice, and chicken fingers. I’ve never had food from here that I haven’t liked. I like their crab rangoons, too, but there is 1 other place who I like them better from. The guy who answers the phone is awesome, too. He’s really friendly and upbeat.
Oh, and if you like hot mustard, China Garden’s is really good. Check this place out. Everyone I know who has been there loves it. Get takeout or delivery because they have next to no seating, but that doesn’t detract from China Garden’s awesomeness at all.

Yummy food. Good prices. Great lobster sauce! I live in California and the Chinese food in my area is crap! I grew up in the east coast and nothing taste better to me than «Boston style» Chinese takeout (: i pretty much got a little of everything on the menu while I was there my last trip. I had to take advantage of it before coming back to the west but my only complaints is the 5 lbs i gained and the fact that its CA$H ONLY was a bit inconvenient.

Usually, we can find a place that does great junkfood-​Chinese food (chicken fingers, egg rolls, chicken wings, etc.) and another place that does good meal-​Chinese food (lo mein, entrees, soup, etc.) but it’s rare to get both needs at one restaurant. We’ve been on the hunt for THAT place for a long time (so one delivery can satisfy multiple cravings).
The egg rolls are as good as everyone says. They taste home-​made. The wrapper was really fresh and it was PACKED with a ton of cabbages, onions and tender (not overly dry and stringy) pork. The duck sauce was NOT all applesaucy in its consistency — it was great. They *were* a little soggy but hey — that’s delivery. Find me a restaurant that can deliver deep-​fried food in perfectly crispy condition just like I was in the restaurant and they can have a customer for life. For delivery, they were better than usual in terms of crispiness.
The lo mein noodles are either made fresh on site or ordered daily from a fresh noodle supplier — either way — superb noodle quality. I didn’t eat the shrimp with lobster sauce by my partner declares it, «DELICIOUS!»
We also ordered egg drop soup which we were too full to eat last night — stay tuned for an update. One note of caution: the soups come in «one size only» and that size is QUART. Mind you, I am not unhappy to have two quarts of soup (I freaking LOVE soup) and the price was fair for that size but do keep that in mind if you don’t want twice the soup you are expecting.
My only complaint: canned mushrooms. Usually rage-​inducing, Chinese food is the only cuisine where I have forgiveness for canned mushrooms if everything else is good. Everything else was good but still, I feel an obligation to put it out there.
I look forward to giving other menu items a try based on the quality of last night’s meal. The lo mein and egg rolls are a DEFINITE repeat and I’m especially excited to try anything noodle-​based if they use fresh noodles in all their dishes.

Having just moved to the area we are in the process of testing out all the new local faire. We decided to give China Garden a shot and do I wish we just passed. The orange chicken tasted like flour, no flavor at all. The chicken fingers weren’t cooked long enough and the batter wasn’t cooked in the middle, it was all soggy and gross. The crab rangoons were bland, puff pastry with generic cream cheese filling. The rice was dry. The only saving grace were the boneless spareribs, they were actually pretty decent. But other than that the whole meal thrown away. Waste of money.

Ew. Just ordered from this place. I think the people who left good reviews, were paid to do so. So after ordering out from a menu I found on Grubhub and getting the receipt at arrival, I realized that the prices were raised, since the time the menu was uploaded. I didn’t mind the price regardless, but it was totally not worth what I paid!
1^st of all, the food was luke warm/​cold upon arrival.
2^nd of all, and most important, the quality was awful. I’ve never had (american)chinese food this bad, not even in the mall food courts. I ordered two of their combination plates; in total they contained white rice, lo mein, orange chicken, boneless bbq spare ribs, fried chicken, egg rolls and crab rangoons. I am going to expand on this.
The lo mein is not the typical kind you’d have. They were made of a thin rice noodle and not the usual egg like noodles. Although they weren’t the type of noodle I expected, it wasn’t bad. Not to mention the white rice was dry. How could someone mess up on making rice?! Like seriously. you’re a chinese restaurant.
We expected the orange chicken to have a nice crisp fried look, with a sweet tangy sauce on top. Instead, the chicken wasn’t even fried in a batter before hand. It was more like it was stir fried just in the sauce. Where’s the crunch that we all love in the generals chicken and orange chicken?
As for the all the rage over their egg rolls; they were nothing but the standard sucky egg rolls you get at most chinese places. They were filled with veggies and very little meat. They had so much overcooked greens in them. I was overwhelmed with a bite chalked full of celery.
The crab rangoons weren’t the best, but also not so bad. I think that the only way you could enjoy them is to make sure you have that dipping sauce (plum sauce?). I think it would’ve been better had they been warmer than when they arrived and just a bit crispier. They had the chew but not the bite.
NOT trashing everything I had to eat. I did think that the spare ribs and fried chicken were up to standard, and not so bad.
3^rd of all, the cost is totally not worth it. They automatically assumed I wanted the large order of the rangoons instead of a small. They didn’t even tell me the cost before hanging up on the phone and all the other additional charges. The taste and quality of food was just not worth it
Overall, I think if my food was warmer, this review wouldn’t be so long. haha I also suggest you try a different place to fill your chinese food fix.
this is the outdated menu i found

good, greasy chinese food! Love the noodles they use for the lo mein, medium thickness and perfect! My go to take out chinese in the medford/​malden area. The one negative is cash only.

While the eggs rolls are pretty awesome, you failed at hot and sour soup, it was all sour mix that tasted months old. Yuck!
The meat on a stick was yummy, but I need my soup!