Location

16580 Ne 74th St.,
Redmond , WA 98052 UNITED STATES

Reviews

Based on 7 reviews

jameswhitaker

Worst dining experience I've had in a long time

It will be easier to start out by listing the things that were done right. The rice and the hot & sour soup were acceptable. The water was good. No, I said the WATER, the WAITER was terrible. We did not have to wait long for service as we were the only two in the restaurant and were outnumbered by staff more than two to one (this at 9 on a Saturday evening...) The tea service consisted of the cutest china I've ever seen. Now the rest. I heard no complaints from my friend about the egg-flower soup, possibly because she wasn't permitted to finish much of it before it was whisked away. The tea was just plain bad. It was supposed to be a loose-leaf oolong, but didn't resemble oolong in any recognizable way. Possibly because it was old. Maybe it was just cheap. My money is on cheap and old. And not an oolong. Because the tea was loose-leaf and placed in the teapot without any means of straining it and because of the size of the proffered teacups it was impossible to drain the tea fast enough to prevent it's becoming dangerously over-steeped. My friend ordered the almond chicken. It was luke warm, breaded breast filets swimming in an unidentified gravy with no flavor with some chopped nuts (possibly almonds) tossed on top. It would have been sub-par for a microwave meal. My pork dish was acceptable, but nothing to write home about. I was not asked how hot I wanted it and it could certainly have had more than a single pepper in it for being listed on the menu as hot. It was also luke warm. The janitor spent most of the time we were dining mopping the dining room. Fortunately, he let us finish most of our 'meal' before attempting to mop under our table. I believe this is the first time in my life that I have not left a tip. It felt kind of weird doing so but try as I might, I had not wittnessed a single deed worthy of tipping from the time I walked though the door of this palace of sub-mediocre fare and callous service. Oh, and the chopsticks were terrible, too.

posted at 07/15/06

copita

Horrific Service

My husband and I went to see a movie. Afterwards, we were hungry so we decided to go try the Golden Chopsticks which was just across from the theater.

The decor was nice. The menu seemed good. The waiter took our order right away, and poured our water and tea. And then we sat. And sat. And sat.

45 minutes later, no one had even come by to check on us, nor was there so much as a bowl of soup in sight. My husband went to get our waiter who only shrugged dismissively when we asked how long the food would be.

Finally, after 15 more minutes we decided to go someplace else. Instead of apologizing, the proprietor came over and demanded to know why we were leaving. I patiently explained to her that one hour was a little long to be kept waiting, and that the server hadn?t so much as come by to refill our water. To which she replied: ?Well, that?s because you didn?t order any.? She then demanded payment for the tea (we had already left it on the table.)

I have never had another experience like this one - thankfully!

posted at 02/02/07

dumbhuskie1

save your money

I was a bit reluctant to try this place. I should have trusted my instincts. We had immediate seating but there were only three other tables with customers. The water came quickly and the order was eventually taken. After reading the other reviews, I feel lucky, the food only took 35 minutes to come instead of the average 45-minute usual time. During the wait, the server never came to check on us. We ordered three dishes and were disappointed with two. We had the Honey Walnut Prawns, they were on par with other Chinese places, but not spectacular. The other two dishes were Curry Chicken and Assorted Vegetables. The curry chicken barely had any curry flavor or smell. The chicken itself tasted like it was blanched three days before and left in the fridge to absorb the fridge?s odors. The assorted veggies were bland and did not have the wok smell/taste I would expect from a stir-fry. The steamed rice was also a disappointment for a Chinese restaurant, seemed like a cheap grade of rice and cooked with too much water. This is the first and last time for this place, plus it prompted me to sign up and add a review.

posted at 11/21/07

zizani

worst service ever!

try to avoid going there especially if you are starving! we had to wait for at least 45 minutes to be served!!!! they should definitely hire more staff

posted at 05/10/08

jenniferceline

My favorite Chinese restaurant!

Looking at the dates of the low-star reviews below, I encourage everyone to give Golden Chopsticks a chance... things must have changed since then!

Golden Chopsticks is hands-down the best Chinese restaurant in town. A lot of the complaints below talk about terrible service, however the servers here are GREAT! There always seem to be two women who talk and joke around with us all the time... very very nice.

The FOOD is why we keep coming back! The first time I went there I tried Princess Prawns... and I must admit that I haven't ordered anything else since. It has a powerful & unique sweet/savory taste and is battered so light & crisp - wonderful! My boyfriend always orders the lemon chicken. Unlike with most Chinese places, their chicken is always white meat (no mystery meat here!)... so I can feel comfortable stealing some of his dish. This is also breaded light & crisp with a wonderful subtle lemon flavor.

It could be considered a little pricey (but, then again, all Chinese in Redmond is). However, the food keeps me coming back again & again regardless of price.

I urge you to try this restaurant... it's wonderful!

posted at 05/24/09

Experienced Diner

I'll never go there again

Rated a 1 because 0 and negative numbers are not an option. I visited this restaurant in November of 2009 and I have to suspect that the positive reviews are planted by friends and family.

My wife and I spent $100+ for our anniversary dinner here because we love chinese food (one of our most commonly purchased foot categories in the last 30 years) and expected by location and appearance we could get some spectacular food here.

We got the food to go so we could enjoy our meal peacefully in a park. We had half of the General Tsao's chicken first and mostly enjoyed it though it was lacking in the 'trinity' of chinese food, ginger/garlic/scallion (which plays the same role that mirepoix, onion/celery/carrot, does in french and other cuisines) before we moved on to the other dishes. We immediately found that the lack of those classic chinese flavors were even more pronounced in the other dishes - no detectable ginger/garlic/scallion at all. The sauce was bland and "goopy", reminiscent of the sauce that comes in grocery store canned chinese food mixes. There was a second spicy, breaded dish - prawns - and the sauce there fell short even of the General Tsao's, plus the breading was doughy and seemed as if far too much baking soda had been used. In desperation we went back to the General Tsao's and found that the remainder also had the nasty, doughy batter that we'd found on the prawns. After talking to the manager/owner we ultimately threw most of the food away as even the desire to not throw our money away was not enough to make it worth choking down.

The experience of expressing our extreme disappointment to the owner/manager was what truly cinched our disgust and disappointment. I described the elements that had been lacking - lack of classic ginger/garlic/scallion flavor, doughy, badly flavored batter - and I was told I didn't know what chinese food was supposed to taste like and that the other reason I hadn't liked it must have been because I asked for them to put no MSG on the dishes. I described my long experience eating chinese food and familiarity with the almost mandatory elements of the foundation of chinese food and finally asked her "what happened to the customer is always right? Shouldn't you refund a disappointed customer or are you doing so poorly you can't afford to make this right?" Her final position was that I was just wrong, I didn't know what the food was supposed to taste like and that it was unreasonable for me to expect any sort of refund, remake (I still had the remainder of the food at this point), anything to make it right.

In my opinion this "soup nazi" of chinese food doesn't deserve to have a business until she learns how to cook, perform customer service and accept that her business is based on customers, not her ego.

posted at 02/14/10

CurtNelson

Give it a try

I have visited this restaurant many times over the years. I have never had a bad food experience here. In fact, I believe it is some of the best Chinese food on the Eastside. As other reviewers however, there were times where the service was slow or the kitchen very backed up.
I last visited on July 9 and the service was much better. Perhaps they read the reviews here, I don' t know. But the service was prompt, friendly, and attentive.
Since the food was very good as always, I'd recommend that people give it a try again. It looks like they've got their act together.

posted at 07/12/10

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Worldwide > United States > Redmond, WA > Chinese Restaurants

Golden Chopsticks

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Reviews

jameswhitaker

copita

dumbhuskie1

zizani

jenniferceline

Experienced Diner

CurtNelson

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