Hop Sings – Pacheco Take Out

I have grown up rating this probably once a month my entire life (i am now 23). This is a total dive chinese takeout spot but some of their items are actually delish!
My go to here is the shrimp wonton soup. It is so amazing. No joke. I crave it all the time. its like 8 bucks but I have never had a better shrimp/​wonton soup anywhere!
I also love their egg roles, chow mein, and fried shrimp. The sweet and sour pork and broccoli beef are always what my family order to share. They used to make amazing prk ribs on the weekends but stopped! Please bring them back!!!
They will give you hot sweet and sour to dunk your egg roles or fried wontons in. So yummy.
Its a little dumpy inside, and maybe not the cleanest. But the «bossman» who runs it is so nice. I am a lifelong customer. Great if you want greasy/​american chinese!

Funny thing about this place, either people love it or hate it! For those of us who grew up in the area and have been coming here for years & years, we may tend to overlook it’s temperamental quirks. Therefore, we order ONLY that which we know to be good and only put up with it’s less than charming décor & ambiance because we admit:
Yes it’s a hole-​in-​the-​wall-​dive, which offers to-​go only service,
Yes their hours are inconsistent, went by a couple times, hours on sign listed it as «open» but sign said closed,
Yes it could do with a dusting in the order area,
Yes it’s staff/​owner (et al) can be less than personable, at times,
Yes some of what they offer is not great, as with any restaurant potentially,
Yes it’s Americanized Chinese food. (& so what if it is?),
Yes, there are better Chinese food establishments nearby.
And yes I agree with my fellow Unilocaler JB from Oakland who said «It’s like a virus…», & YES perhaps I am too, inoculated from it’s glaring issue’s, but READ ON to find out why;
I am a fan because I have a couple of favorite dishes that I order regularly and have a hard time (if not impossible time) finding them elsewhere. So when I get a craving, I order from here, & despite my high praise of my other Chinese restaurant fav’s posted here on Unilocal I give it 3 stars for what I order and 2 stars for that which could use improvement by the owner. This is not high end dining so I keep my expectations in check.
First off I love their Beef Tomato Chow Mein with Curry and their Beef Won Ton Soup. Used to get both in Chinatown in Oakland, but place is long since closed. I can’t find either anywhere out this way. So I order from here. In my experience, they also have good solid Broccoli Beef (meat very tender & good flavorful sauce) and their sliced BBQ Chinese pork is also quite tasty. They also make a unique Fried Chicken, that is also quite good, but wish they’d serve in bigger pieces. Plus their prices are not that expensive.
I guess the best advice is to order here with caution. Stick to what you like or a friend recommends. I don’t want to totally bash the place, but admit it definitely has its shortcomings at this time.

WORST PLACE EVER!!! DO NOT EAT HERE!!! Go to los ponchos if you’re hungry!
My mom and I came here because she was wanting Chinese food. I told her we probably shouldn’t go there because I go to los ponchos all the time and I always see it empty so I assumed the food sucks.
First of all, it’s really gross inside and Customer service is terrible! It took over 20 minutes for us to get our food.
We order some orange chicken and two half orders of chow mein and fried rice. My mom got a diet coke and I asked for water but they said they don’t have any…
We get our food and it looks good and smells good. I open up the orange chicken and start eating, it tastes okay, my mom said it was over cooked. I didn’t think so but after having to chew every god damn piece for 2 minutes I realized something was wrong. It was getting all stuck in my teeth and I couldn’t chew it! I ended up eating 2 and then when I tried to eat a third a spit it out on the ground because I couldn’t take all the chewing! My fricking jaw started hurting!
The fried rice was pretty good, but there were a lot of pieces of pork in it that had fat stuck to it :(I ain’t eating that bullshit.
The chow mein was okay but when I opened it there was a bunch of pork on top and chow mein underneath… Weird. And then the pork was really dry.
AND HERES THE CHERRY ON TOP OF THIS DISGUSTING EXPERIENCE:
My mom and I decide we are going to get our money back for the orange chicken because it was $ 8 and we only ate a few and didn’t even enjoy it.
My mom goes in there and 3 minutes later I hear some yelling from inside the dusty ass Cobb webbed place. It’s the manager!!!
He is yelling at my mom! So I go in there and he starts an attitude at me before I even say anything. He is yelling saying he never over cooks and never serves old food! This idiot is freaking out. My mom looks speechless. I can’t help but laugh. He tells us we brought the thing back with too much chicken missing. It was about 80% full and he tries to tell us that it’s half empty. I don’t even know what to say because his argument was completely ridiculous! It was way over half full! I couldn’t believe this. I thought he was kidding because he was acting such a fool. My mom says she’s going to post a review on Unilocal and the man flips out, grabs a tablet and says he’s going to take a picture of her and post her to Unilocal!!!Mind you, my mom never raised her voice. This dude is insane! I start arguing with him but realize it’s no use because I’m not going to try to convince this asshole that the damn thing of chicken is more that ¾ full. It’s whatever. He offered to give her $ 5 back since we «ate over half already and we must have liked it» LMAO it was disgusting. I need some floss right now!!! I just said forget it and we walked out. As we are walking out the owner goes outside and tries to take pictures of us hella far away in the car. FREAK!
Do not come here unless you want terrible service, disgusting food, and perhaps a pyscho owner!
I am so nervous to see how I feel tommorow when this stuff exits my system! Hope I don’t get food poisoning like the other reviews mention!
If your in this parking lot go to los ponchos or subway or even 7 – 11, you will get better food and a better price!

Best hole in the wall spot! The food is great and the service is lovely. I’ve been going here since my parents brought my brother and I. And my parents have been going here even before having us kids so that should say a lot about the awesome Chinese food. I’m no food critic but this place definitely gives a «homey» comfort food type of feel for indulging in Chinese food. Enjoy!

This place is like virus or something. If you are exposed to it when you are young, you build up antibodies and you love it. If you have never been exposed well, you might get sick.
Case in point. I was sucking on Hop Sings chicken wings when I was teething. And not the new PC white bed sheet wings they have now with the LBGTQ garlic powder. The OG, Rick James I have no need to tell you if I am L, B, or G cause we all are getting down to night, red silk, cheetah print bed sheet, thick like we like em’ wings. I have been around the world and no place has better pork chow main. Their prawns seemed to be hand selected by water nymphs that have been trained for thousands of generation to fine only the most impeccable specimens who not only willingly but assiduously bathe themselves in a coating of what could be mistaken for the semen of the creator in all her glory given upon this earth unto us.
My girlfriend doesn’t like it.

I went to Hop Sings to pick up some War won ton soup, eggs rolls and potstickers. The soup was horrible, lacking flavor, won tons had no filling and hardly any meat. The egg rolls tasted like old burnt oil and the potstickers were cold. Overall I don’t know how this place is still in business because the place was empty and the food is horrible. So sad.

The only thing I ate here is the spicy chicken bowl, like the amount of green bell peppers, red onions, rice, and spice they put in it. The chicken need something to it, from my tastebuds.

Awful, horrible food! Got takeout & got the combo with sweet & sour pork, fried rice & chow mein. Literally the WORST Chinese I’ve EVER had. Seriously DON’T ORDER FROM HERE! Everything was awful! The fried rice was crunchy & burnt. Really?! The chow mein was flavorless & had an awkward amount of onion and celery, both of which were almost raw. And the sweet & sour pork. Omg I am appalled that they could even serve this to humans! The meat itself was fatty, floppy, just awful. Literally unedible. I don’t expect super high quality stuff from a take out place, but I do expect it to be decently edible. This place should be ashamed of themselves. Save yourself & go somewhere else!

Not sure what happened to my review from a few years ago… We frequent this hole in the wall when we want Americanized Chinese food. My family has been eating her since the 70s when there was only 2 other Chinese places in town, one on galindo st. owned by the Thuy’s and the other on Clayton rd. A little take out place that’s still there. Anyway… The food is good, fresh, made to order and if it didn’t have a loyal fan following it wouldn’t have survived for 4 decades. Enjoy!

Decided to try this take out. What an absolute disappointment. I ordered Hot and Sour Soup, Pork Wonton Soup, and the Special Vegetables. The Special Vegetables were at least edible, although some of the broccoli seemed old. Too many onions and only a few snow peas.
The soups I had to dump down the drain. No flavor at all, and didn’t smell good we were afraid to eat them. Total waste of 21.00. I would have taken it back but we were on our way out to a meeting and didn’t have time. Won’t go there again. I would like to not give it any stars.

Yikes! Where do I start? Such a waste of $$ :(and now that I see others got food poisoning I’m wishing I read the Unilocal reviews 1^st (Note to self)! What upset me the most was the sweet and sour shrimp (not deep fried like pork or chicken and not specified otherwise) got home to find ¾ of the box filled with undercooked vegetables mostly onions and what shrimp was there to be found tasted fishy and stillhad poo
inside!!!
Unfriendly service, appeared annoyed with us coming 15min b4 closing but its a takeout place for crying out loud!
Place is also pretty dusty/​dirty which is usually a red light for me but my husband wasreally interested in trying them but decided we’d never return after.
Lastly the place is not well ventilated. After 10−15min in waiting area all our clothes smell like we worked at Mc Donalds… Fried food nastiness central :(

Next a.m., son and I got sooooooo sick from the food, couldnt even go to a New Years party, food poisoning! NEVER, EVER eat there again!
is there a minus 10 star for this place??? Ugh!

We used to live off Center Ave when I was a kid and my parents got Hop Sings at least once every two weeks, we loved it. The Tomato Beef Chow Mein is the BEST EVERRRRRRRR, I have searched high and low for even comparable, but have yet to find it. Now I live all the way over by Clayton and I STILL venture over there just for the Tomato Beef Chow Mein. To be honest, I have not tried much else there, but the things I have tried have always been tasty. I absolutely LOVE the owner, he goes out of his way to make a dish the way you want it or make suggestions, he is just a really nice guy and I remember that from when I was a child too! I suggest giving it a try, different strokes for different folks is what I say. you may find that you like it!

Oh Hop Sing, I had such high hopes for the food. I REALLY wanted to like it. I believe in the little guy. I love to support lost causes (being a life-​long Raiders fan has prepared me for such quixotic endeavors.) It is a cute little place hidden away in Pacheco which is itself hidden away and not often worth finding. I saw it while passing through and thought «what the heck» I could eat here or at the taqueria next door which seems pretty busy. I really should have walked to the left and had a taco.
The Good: The person behind the counter was very nice and helpful. The theme is kind of cute in a «wow this was probably nice looking when it opened a year or ten ago» kind of way.
The bad: The «old chinese recipe» fried chicken was something I was really looking forward to trying. When I was a kid we used to go to the Willow Tree in Dublin some Sundays for their brunch and they had these magically delicious garlic fried chicken wings that were delicate and juicy — almost tempura but not quite. When I saw this on the menu I thought Nirvana had finally found me — no not the dirty plaid shirt rockers. Hop Sing’s version was not overly oily once again, but the coating was so dry and occasionally so hard that I checked my teeth in the mirror afterwards for chipped teeth. Alas not much garlic flavor either. Maybe it was my fault for trying to conjure up a childhood memory. Maybe no place can ever match that. The sweet and sour pork part of the combo would make for it, right? It looked pretty good. Not the electric red color we usually see. Maybe there is hope since it is obviously a homemade sauce? Eh, no. Stringier than usual meat and a thin sauce that was barely sweet or sour and whose highlight was the pineapple bits that were in it. Strike two.
The mediocre: The chow mein was not overly oily like many places I have tried. Unfortunately it wasn’t overly flavorful either.
Overall: Either keep driving or veer left while walking to Hop Sing’s in the hopes of accidentally entering the taqueria next door. I’m sorry Mr. Nice Counter Guy. The food left me wishing I had not eaten at all.

5 stars for the meal I just ate. I asked for a vegetable chow mien, without Bok Choy. The man who took my order asked why no bok choy. I told him that I’ve never liked it for it’s too soggy and limp. He asked if he could make it special for me so that it’s not limp and inedible. a few minutes later he came out with the best bok choy I’ve ever eaten. infact all the vegetables were crisp yet tender while the garlicky noodles were chewy and seasoned well. Thanks for taking your time to make sure I enjoyed my meal.

Fried rice is good — goes well with the sweet and sour pork. Chow fun is decent tasting, but it’s really greasy and doesn’t sit well after awhile.
I used to come here a lot as I was growing up, but after having some really authentic, nongreasy Chinese food, this place will not be near the top of my list.

This review is a mixed one.
The boyfriends take on it: «I’ve always liked their food and I didn’t order anything that was going to be bad. Chicken and broccoli was good, and I liked the sliced pork.»
My review: «While the chicken chow fun was excellent– they use a wider variety of veggies than many other chinese food places around here, the won ton soup was ick! I was very disappointed by the soup, and personally I couldn’t eat very much of the sliced pork. Arguably I’m not much of a pork person aside from bacon, but it was too fatty for my tastes, it’s a texture issue.»
So I split the difference and went with three stars for our review on this one. The service was good, the guy was super nice and we got our food promptly, but since we spent around $ 30 and I only enjoyed about $ 5 of the meal I really can’t say I’ll be going back. Just too expensive to run the risk of gambling when everyone raves about their pork and I’m not a pork person.

I’m not a big chinese food guy but i’m a big fan of pork fried rice and it’s really good here. Their chicken rice bowls are also very good. The teriyaki sauce he uses on it is bomb. He needs to bottle it and sell it.

I love this place, the food is great and large portions. I have been eating there since I was a kid. Lobby could use some help, the chairs are not on the best shape

This is just the kind of place I generally dearly love. However, our meal Friday night, August 12, 2011 was awful, a 2-​star review is generous. The pork buns were reported to be good on the drive home, and we drove all the way back to Walnut Creek before the rest of the food. It was one big disappointment.
The hot and door soup was brown but tasted of very little. Not hot/​spicy or sour. My almond chicken was a clear broth, not brown and no flavor. My boyfriend had the fried chicken and he couldn’t bite it — the smell was greasy. On top of that, that near bite — and he had an aftertaste in his mouth. Big waste. No more food adventures before we check Unilocal