Eat First Restaurant

Went here before Caps game, and was pleasantly surprised. This is a little hole in the wall, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. We were greeted immediately, and seated with a pot of hot tea. Great array of adult beverages. I ordered the beef in Sha cha sauce, which was beef sautéed with green peppers, onions and pineapple. Very good, and not spicy at all which had me a little disappointed. My husband ordered crispy beef, which was some sort of a batter-​fried beef in a sweet and spicy sauce with carrots and celery. His was better than mine, but both were very good. We also ordered the crowd rice, which came out quickly, and was very tasty. Service was polite and fast, which left us with some time to kill before the game. The restaurant was clean, though showing some signs of wear and tear, like water marks on the ceiling tiles and frayed carpet. I would definitely come back.

This restaurant has been on my radar since it was featured in a Washingtonian article at least a decade ago. At the time, it was cash-​only. That fact probably deterred me from trying sooner, or I just never got around to sampling their food. Anyway, credit cards are accepted now, and they’ll even happily give each person a separate check if you ask. Nice!
So glad my friend and I decided to try this place today. We were super impressed by their prices. We originally considered Full Kee DC, but Full Kee’s pricing is noticeably higher for most similar items offered at Eat First. Eat First is still very affordable despite its location in a high-​traffic and super touristy part of town. Eat First is also a great dining option in the heart of Chinatown because their food is quite good and reminiscent of what you can find in areas with a high concentration of Chinese businesses.
For one of the most inexpensive lunch options in the city, in a sitdown restaurant for that matter, order their congee! Their congees come with veggies, seafood, pork, preserved duck egg, and other interesting combinations. And you can have a hearty bowl of porridge for $ 7.95! That’s cheaper than most sandwiches! The congee that I got – fish filet with preserved egg – had a homemade quality that was very comforting, and it contained just the right amount of ginger slivers, fish, and egg, only wished for more scallions.
Next time, my friend and I are totally going to get one of the items advertised along the walls (grouper filet in black bean sauce, lotus root, geoduck with chives (maybe), Chinese mushrooms stuffed with shrimp). Everything sounded really interesting and delicious.
Service was prompt and polite. For a hole-​in-​the-​wall, Eat First was also pleasantly clean and comfortable.
There’s not much going in DC’s Chinatown, with most authentic Chinese eats concentrated in Rockville and Falls Church. Eat First is one of the exceptions. A budget-​friendly spot for comforting, filling, and tasty Cantonese dishes.

Prices are pretty reasonable. You have to try the House Chow Mein, absolutely delicious!
It’s true that the place is outdated and needs some serious renovations, but if you keep in mind that you are here for the food and not for the «ambiance» you will enjoy a nice meal.

Lovely place up on H St. We were promptly greeted, seated and given the menu. After reviewing the menu briefly though, I felt something was missing. So I asked the server if by chance they had another menu that might have other more authentic items on it. He smiled, and returned momentarily with the other menu.
That issue settled, I ordered some hot and sour soup because I like it. Also asked for the shrimp stuffed eggplant with tofu (on green peppers) and the seafood and tofu hot pot from the extra menu. My traveling colleague ordered the fried pot stickers and some Hunan chicken thing.
So here’s the deal. The food was great (so maybe the Hunan chicken thing wasn’t but I’m not responsible for that one and it doesn’t count) and it was hot. The hot pot came out still sizzling. The servers were all wonderful and took care of all our desires. The price for all this when it was done was very reasonable.
Please check them out — be adventurous!

I have decidedly mixed feelings about Eat First. On one hand, it’s reasonably priced, always has room and turns out a number of pretty good renditions of Americanized/​Britishized chinese dishes combined with some really authentic chinese food. (Geoducks anyone?) I’ve never had an awful meal here. The menu is huge and they use pretty decent ingredients. Don’t really make the spicy dishes spicy enough (this is a tourist area) but it’s probably as good as anything else in the District at this price point. (D.C.‘s best Chinese is all in suburban strip malls.) The place’s real downfall is simple: the service genuinely sucks. Dishes and requested don’t appear, managers yell at customers, you might get seated at a table with some other people. And so forth. Still, not a bad place to go for an affordable, decent americanized-​chinese meal.

This place really over-​delivers on expectations. It is exactly what a great chinatown restaurant should be. A little old and worn on the outside, with an interesting menu full of exotic ingredients and bursting with flavor. They got an extra star for the complementary hot tea upon arrival and fresh orange slices when the check is dropped; they lost a star because I found a staple in my food. They were apologetic and comped the dish. I would still go back, accidents do happen and they handled the situation appropriately.

My friends and I ordered take out late one evening, and just about everyone enjoyed their food. I got the Beef Chow Foon (aka Chow Fun), dry preparation, and it was good, hit the right spot.
My friends ordered traditional orange chicken, General Tso’s chicken, house special egg foo young, house special fried rice, and BBQ Pork. The only dish that was of disappointment was the BBQ Pork, may not be freshly made, and certainly did not have that nice glaze coating on the outside from the honey or sugar, used to give the bbq a slight sweet kick.
I tried a bite of my friend’s egg foo young with brown gravy, and it was actually quite good. Unlike my one and only previous experience with egg foo young which literally left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Quite good for a Chinese Restaurant that caters mainly to the non-​Chinese crowd.

Was really good quick service and had the crispy beef which was really really good.
Had the congee and it was good, but if you don’t like ginger… You may want to pass on the congee.
The Chinese broccoli was really good also. It was light and crisp yet flavorful.
In addition everything came out hot!

Great place for lunch. Stumbled upon it on way to national gallery. The spring rolls were hand rolled, crisp & delicious. The house red sauce was just sweet & spicy enough to compliment the flavors in the spring roll. General Tso’s chicken was also very good. Clearly hand breaded on site and cooked to order. Schmoopie had the Singapore Spice Noodle which looked and smelled amazing. He ate every bit of it. We will definitely be back!

Saturday lunch specials not available so it’s an expensive place for a lunch.
General tso chicken was not good. Too much breeding almost no chicken. Same for sweet and sour shrimp and scallops– all breeding fried. Terrible sauce.
Not that clean either. There are better places so keep walking.

1:30pm on a Thursday.
The service was poor. The Hot and Sour Soup was burnt and tasted awful. The egg drop soup was passable and the Ma Po Bean Curd was mediocre.
The price is good, so there’s that.

Viel, viel, viel zu teuer für 8 €. Essen in Ordnung aber leicht mensa-​mäßig und meist wenig. Mache ich nicht mehr solange es keine Bestandskundengutscheine gibt.

Clean, attentive service and conducive ambience for lunch. Bean curd and streamed veggies was healthy and delicious.

Came for a quick take out. The food was good. More on the salty side then most places I’ve eaten. But it was quick and their Hong Kong style soup with chicken (he made it with chicken for me) was tasty. Cheap fast food.

Once again… Shady in the outside. CLEAN on the inside. AMAZED!!!
Great lunch. Walk in. You’ll be amazed.
Egg drop soup and Singapore spicy rice noodles. Awesome. $ 7 out the door.

Low-​key original Chinatown restaurant.
No frills, good service, good food, decent prices.
This place has a wide range on Cantonese style and Americanized Chinese food options. It also has good, cheap drinks. I would recommend this place and will go again next time I want a quick cheap eats place in Chinatown.

I’ve been coming to Eat First since 2009, and it has held up over the years. The service is generally good (but few of the servers speak great English), their lunch specials are insanely inexpensive for how good they are, and the menu is huge and has tons of dishes you won’t find at a more Americanized Chinese restaurant.
In particular, the insert menu provides good options — the hot pots are very good. I also recommend ordering from the specialty/chef’s choice menu. I’ve had most of their vegetarian dishes, all of which were very good, and a number of their non-​vegetarian dishes, which were also good.
Ignore the haters. If you are willing to tolerate a slightly less refined dining experience for good food, then this place is for you.

My new office is near Chinatown in DC. My husband and I wanted to try the Chinese food, so we decided to pay this restaurant a visit. I wouldn’t even give an one-​star rating, but I had to in order to write a review. I observed three major issues when my husband and I visited this restaurant on 12/​23/​2014.
1. Hot food on cold plates
2. Not as advertised in Chinese
3. Below-​average quality and taste
Having to wait table in the college, I know that the restaurants are not supposed to serve hot food on cold plates or vice versa. Our hot lunch entrees were served on the cold plates. I ordered the Roasted Duck, Pork, and Soy Chicken on Rice or to be exact, 三寶飯 per menu — Three Treasures on Rice. My husband ordered the Spicy Chicken or 辣子雞 per menu — a signature chicken dish of Chongqing, China that is made with LOTS dried chili peppers.
I got mostly chopped chicken neck, a few pieces of chopped duck back, and a few pieces of under seasoned and red food-​colored BBQ pork. I’ve eaten Chinese my entire life and I have never had chopped chicken neck served on rice at any Chinese restaurant. We never call chicken neck a «treasure.» The 辣子雞 was spicy, but it had no dried chili peppers. It was seasoned with chili sauce instead. If you copy and paste the following Chinese characters, 辣子雞 into Google and look for the images, you will see tha t辣子雞 has LOTS of chili peppers. The chicken dish they served to my husband is more like chicken strips stir-​fried in hot sauce with cabbage. The dishes they served definitely didn’t match the Chinese descriptions. The chef obviously doesn’t know his Chinese food. I can almost make a false advertisement argument.
If you can’t read Chinese, you probably won’t get as ticked off as I am. If you don’t eat the real Chinese food, you probably won’t get as disappointed as I am. While my husband and I were there, a customer sent his food back because it was burnt. In summary, this place is not authentic or legit, just a wannabe.

Eat First goes by another name around my office — «Cheap Chinese». When I first started eating here the lunch specials were $ 3.95 — $ 8.00. The prices have gone up over the years with the top three lunch specials:
* Kung Pao Chicken
* Ma Po Tofu
* Szechuan chicken
have had their prices raised to a whopping $ 4.55, but still a bargain nonetheless. Your $ 4.55 gets you big plate with ½ steamed or fried rice and your choice of entrée. I usually get the Kung Pao because there is NO WHERE ELSE in DC that you can get lunch for less than $ 7 including a generous tip ($ 6 if you’re a cheap skate).
The Singapore Rice noodle with choice of shrimp or roast pork is also an excellent deal for around $ 5 and change. Rice noodles are tossed in a light curry sauce with veggies and protein. Tasty and filling and could easily sell at most food courts for $ 2-​$ 3 more.
I’ve also had some of their specialty dishes and was also pleased with the outcome. The seafood chow mein is a medley of seafood (shrimp, scallops, squid, etc.) stir fried in a white sauce and served atop of pan fried noodles. The noodles could probably be a bit crispier; but then again a few less minutes soaking in hot oil probably is healthier for me.
Over the years I’ve stumbled into here after events at the Verizon Center or to grab a quick bite after happy hour at one of the various bars in ChinaBlock. Eat First will never wow you with their décor which is straight out of the 1980’s. But the place provides excellent value while churning out consistent food.

My adventure of finding a good Chinese restaurant goes on I guess. I read good review about this place on the internet and wanted to come to try it. Though so far I had not find one good Chinese restaurant in down town DC.
The food is authentic, but it is like very old fashion and slightly more greasy than the modern Chinese cuisine. The menu is a mix of Southern Chinese food i.e. Cantonese and Northern Chinese cuisine, a bit of everything. I ordered Singapore Hoi Fun, Spinach in Garlic Sauce, Sable Fish and Tofu Hot Pot and Beef Brisket Stew. The Beef Brisket is very tasty, but it needed to be cooked for at least another hour or so depends if you use slow cooker or pressure cooker, it was very chewy. The Sable Fish and Tofu Hotpot was the best, it really is very authentic, as a matter of fact every thing was authentic, but too much oil.
The deco of the place is very outdated, I don’t know how long it has been in DC, it resemble some restaurant in a village in China, plastic flowers… you get the picture.
Service is very good, waiter is attentive and police, food come fast and hot.
It is a ok to me but by no means represents Chinese food I had in Hong Kong, China, Asia or London or even Chicago. There are some better one in the suburb, but no good authentic one in downtown DC.

Even I like this food. I just can put pass what happen one time. Yes! One time it happen to me. I hear story of his happening. Even it happen to my mother a plate of french fries. An roach crawl out from underneath from the food.
That day I had my mind for crisp duck. I order the half a duck. They deep fries there duck with a special duck gravy. with a bowl of rice.
When it came out the roach crawled from the duck to the side of the people. I call the waiter to show what wrong. Even it was slow and was after church Sunday. The staff was sitting around waiting for customer. And it took my several time to get there attention. Even they gave me another replacement order. But I wood not forget that moment. I don’t think I wood come back here again. I got better place then this.