Royal Garden

If you have truly closed then you will be truly missed. You have been my wife and I go to place for great chinese food. I feel like I have lost a family member.

Love this place! Whatever you order comes out piping hot and always delicious. Love the lunch specials with soup and reasonably priced. Waitstaff was great! Sad to hear it has been closed!

I’ve eaten here fairly regularly for a while now and have never been disappointed. There’s never a wait, the staff are attentive and courteous, and the food comes out quickly, correctly, and hot. I go more often for lunch than dinner, so I can tell you the lunch specials go until 330pm, and come with an appetizer and soup. It’s not a particularly fancy place, but fine to bring family and friends.

Food was really good. Service was ok. I would recommend trying them out. If you do I would suggest the sweet and sour pork!

Great food. Luncheon specials are awesome. Staff are friendly and courteous. Service is fantastic. Moo goo gai pan and hot and sour soup are my favorites.

The best Chinese food and best bartenders! Food is hot and fresh !! You must try them !

OK. Here’s the deal. I am a foodie. I loved to eat snails, broccoli and even raw fish since I was a kid. And good fortune has been with me as an adult. I have traveled the world extensively and enjoyed some truly extraordinary meals cooked by talented and tempermental chefs. For years, I haved lived on the North Shore and I really like to eat what we Americans think of as «Chinese.»
I’ve had no fewer than five meals (either at table or take out) at three Chinese restaurants (American Chinese) on the North Shore that seem to vie for the title“best Chine on the North Shore.” They are, in alphabetical order, Mandarin Danvers, Royal Garden and Su Chang’s. Here’s my very brief take on all three, with a little more about my favorite.
Mandarin Danvers: the food used to be good when it was a hole in the wall strip mall joint. The Chinese food was very good and the cooking was consistently above average. In recent years MD has spent lots on décor and interior design and the already ambitious menu now dabbles in Japanese food AND Sushi and other Asian dishes. Result? Décor, comfortable, food uninspiring. Big pours on Martinis, though.
Su Chang’s: though the décor is definitely superior to its competitors and the staff always professional and speaking good English, the food is un-​remarkable. Over the last couple of years I have eaten there many times – always asking the maitr’D and staff for a special Su Chang’s dish. Regrettably, this has never come to pass. While spicy dishes are spicy and while Moo Shu pancakes are moist, it’s almost as if the proprietors, happily aware of the restaurant’s attractive exterior and tasteful décor and professional wait staff are content to serve steady and acceptable fare just a cut above the pizza parlor-​like chinese restaurant we all have nearby, but would never take a hot date to.
Royal Garden is a little different, and sometimes a lot better than the other two. My guess is that RG is a family owned and run operation. You can visit every six months for a couple of years and you’ll see mostly the same faces. While the location is on Rt. 1 in a spot you could drive by every day and never know that there IS a chinese restaurant is there, and while the décor is not as polished as Su Chang’s, or even Mandarin Danvers, when you walk through the door you are made to feel welcome! And yes – the food is consistently better than the décor (we’re hear to eat, right?). And the payoff comes with the food. Ask for the Walnut chicken and you get fresh cooked and tender chicken With — –walnuts and walnut oil! And steamed dumplings are moist and savory; not steam table dumplings you’d get elsewhere. Snow peas, bok-​choi (chinese cabbage) asparagus and broccoli always have a bit of crunch and never have I finished my meal to the onset of an MSG hangover.
If you don’t have the energy to scope out top Chinese in Boston, Portland, Maine or Peking or Shanghai and you’ll be content with consistently good and well cooked and well served «Chinese American Food, try Royal Garden. Ask for advice and you’ll have a good, if not a great meal. Good luck!
FYI: No one paid me to write this, and no one at any of these three restaurants hugs me or offers a free meal when I sit down to eat.

I think this is a good Chinese restaurant. Your standard mai tai’s and apps. Great service. If you are ever feeling under the weather I would suggest the chicken noodle soup. Big bar and plenty of restaurant seats. I’ve been to the Kowloon, this place is better.

Four and a half stars? Seriously? While the service was ok, the food was so so. Nothing stood out. The crab Rangoon was hard, the dumplings quite doughy and the general gau’s had no flavor at all. Nothing was awful. I guess I’m just spoiled on really good Chinese food… the bar on a Wednesday however was very lively… Maybe some of those stars are for drinks. :-)

One of the few good Chinese restaurants on the north shore. The food is always prepared fresh to order and arrives at the table piping hot, unlike other restaurants in the area that pre-​cook some of the dishes *cough cough Kowloon. It is on the expensive side for Chinese food but the quality of the food is worth the premium. If you are looking for authentic Chinese, travel south to Chinatown. If you are looking for good old American Chinese food, look no further than Royal Garden.

I know friends who rave about the Royal Garden and I just don’t get it. It’s not a terrible restaurant by any means and the bartenders are always attentive and affable. I went there recently after a four year hiatus just to see if I was being unduly critical in my several times eating there in the past.
I got the Peking dumplings and they were filled with what looked like ground chicken and not seasoned pork. The ginger sauce was watery. The Kung Pao beef was decent, no complaints there except it could have been spicier for my taste but for most I am sure it was fine. The hot and sour soup was good, not great. Which seems to be my overall opinion of this restaurant. If I could give this 3 ½ stars I would but it’s not four stars in my book so I will stick with three.

LoL, i laugh because looking at 4 stars i know this place is the best Chinese restaurant ive ever been. I would love to see a more authentic menu by them… but of course no one outside of china town is gonna order clams popped open in oyster sauce or peapod greens sautéed in garlic and peanut oil. Ive been comin here forever. EVERYTHING IS PERFECT! Good portions everything is proportionate. Price, quality, portion, protein. A simple, traditional menu at its best. You just cant get any better.

I absolutely love The Royal Garden! They have amazing food and the staff is soooo friendly!

I’ve been here probably 3 – 4 times and the food has always been very good! My last visit on NYE was no exception, service was pretty good too considering how busy they were. I highly recommend the walnut shrimp and general gau’s chicken. The meat is a much higher quality than you get from most chinese restaurants. Drinks are strong too (suggestion: pineapple passion)!

This place has the best Chinese food on the north shore. Everything is very fresh and the drinks are great. Any chicken dish or beef dish you get will be the best you have.

Great cuisine!
Crab Rangoon, hot and fresh, pork on a stick, tender, chicken wings, crispy.
Entrée was cooked to perfection. It was also timed nicely to let me finish my appetizer. Lots of it too!
On a Tuesday night there wasn’t much staff but my waiter was very attentive .
It was «wicked good»

Very good quality food and very reasonable. The food is definitely fresh and the preparation is very well done. The sauces are very good, nice ginger and garlic flavors, the Yu Hsiang style sauces are especially good.
The décor is rather plain but clean and functional. Same with the service, functional and efficient.
The menu has a pretty broad selection of all of the typical dishes that most good quality Chinese restaurants in the US have. Of course it’s not authentic Chinese. I’ve lived in China for awhile and there is not a lot of authentic Chinese cuisine that Americans would have much interest in anyway.
Overall, a very solid choice, you won’t be disappointed.

What a pleasant surprise.
The Royal Garden has probably the best Asian food I have ever had.
RG was recommended to me by a couple of guys in my band that know I not the biggest fan of this type of cuisine. My wife loves Chinese so under slight reluctance I took her there for an early dinner, which does not happen too often for us.
First off the establishment is located in what I refer to as the «The’ Bowels’ section of RT1» its not pretty down there and part of it looks deserted and/​or dated, something out of bad Quentin Tarantino or Rob Zombie movie.
The insides of is very clean and kind of sparse, not trendy at all which some folks could easily judge upon but the staff went out of the way to be friendly, and the service was excellent.
What is their gimmick? Simple… Great, fresh food, with excellent ingredients and generous portions as well for a good price.
The General Gau chicken was large pieces of fresh chicken that were not over done or not overly smothered in sauce. My wife’s egg rolls were the best she has ever had according to her, and I took a sample bite of here Moo Shi Chicken which was really good. (Again I’m not usually into Moo Shi but I really liked it, very clean and fresh tasting).
I did not have a Drink from there but heard only great thinks about the mixologist as well.
If you are looking for great Asian food in the North Shore of Boston then look no further, plain and simple… Their fantastic.

The Royal Garden boasts the best Chinese Food on the North Shore. Their lunch specials routinely pack the bar and draw a strong following from over the years. The Mai Thai [made by Paulie, their regular bartender] you have to try when you go. Friendly staff and attentive service compliments the great food and drink product that they reguarly put out.
Try:
— Chun Liu [sp?] Chicken
— Mai Thai
— Beef and Scallions

Why this place is not as busy as it deserves to be I will never understand. This is not your typical greasy Chinese food. It has the freshest looking and tasting food of any Chinese spot in the area. The vegetables are crispy and not over cooked. I love the garlic flavor of the chicken chow mein. The beef and chicken is so tender and equally as fresh in every dish I have tried.
What makes the food even better is the way they don’t over season or smother everything in over powering sauces. So I love how it makes everything taste much healthier.
The prices are very reasonable especially compared to The Kowloon, It’s alter ego. And finally, The staff is very friendly and accommodating.
I hope more people find out how great this place is. I feel like they are missing out. Five Stars all the way!