Asian Kitchen

Must try! Hidden Gem in Santee, CA…read more Service - prompt, friendly, packed our food for us. Timely service with no long wait. Food portions were generous and satisfying. Prices felt fair and worth it. Clean and well-kept environment. Just make sure toiletries are stocked Food was excellent -- generous meat portions, tender yet crispy orange chicken with balanced flavor. Rice was fluffy and filling. Hot and sour soup was a standout, especially for the price. **Overall: 10/10** Dad approved

So, I have ordered and even dined-in at this restraunt with my wife and kids for the past few…read moreyears. But tonight changed a lot of that. So, to start, my wife will occasionally get treated rather well at the restraunt; she was even given a few freebies while she was pregnant with our twins, so I usually thought rather well of this place, but every time I go, the treatment is different (maybe because I am not a tiny little Asian woman, who knows) but anyways, I go there tonight and I order roughly 120$ in food, and that's where things go south. First they charge me 1.50 for asking for my rice noodles without curry (my wife dislikes curry), which I am used to, but I think might offend them. From there, there is some confusion about my order. They almost forget one of my sides in the proccess, and forgot I ordered fried wontons, but again, that is NOT why I am leaving this review. I am leaving this review because of what happened in all this... So, to begin, I ordered off the menu because I wanted my food fresh, but still, they grabbed all our sides and two of my entrees right out of the to go bar; which would be fine EXCEPT the food on the menu is more expensive because it is FRESH, and not soggy or soft from sitting in a metal tray for like an hour and a half! The next thing that happens is while trying to find out about my wantons they: GO THROUGH MY FOOD. They literally touched all my fried items with ungloved hands while I am sitting there at the waiting table with them; trying to figure out their mistake like I was trying to steal food from them. The kicker being that they forgot to charge the wontons! So instead of being like: 'sorry about the inconvenience', they straight up go: 'oh hey, let us charge you for those after we touched all your food'. Needless to say, I was a bit aghast by all this, but what was worse than the service is the fact that the cook purposefully gave my wife bland unseasoned noodles because I asked for then with 'no curry' as if paying an extra 1.50 wasn't enough, they had to also be like: 'screw your taste buds for not liking our spices!' I mean, none of this was necessary, and it all felt pretty gross and rude by the end as I just took my food and left. All that said, my wife was pretty disappointed to hear about this and thinks we may need to find a new chinese place which really sucks. Yeah... but giving me old food, messing up my order, not preparing my food right (even after they charged extra for it), and touching my food makes me realize it's probably for the best. But hey, at least they remembered to charge me fried wontons, customer always comes last, you know?

To go walk in menu

Teriyaki Chicken and Broccoli Beef

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Combo one with orange chicken and chow mein

Chai Waii Chinese Food

3.6(183 reviews)

0.8 mi

Chai Waii has lasted longer in this suite by the Library in Santee longer than any former tenants…read morein recent memory. There is a reason why. They are serving up delicious authentic (if not a little Americanized) Chinese food. On one of her work from home days, Becky ordered the Black Pepper Chicken: Stir- fried chicken w/ celery, onion, & ground black pepper. She subbed fried rice for white and added two orders of chicken egg rolls. She loved it. The portion size was large enough that we split the leftovers to take to work for lunch the following day. I didn't get to taste it fresh, but the next day it was still great. The chicken was tender and juicy even after a 2-minute nuke. The vegetables were tender yet still had a nice crisp bite. The entire dish had a nice peppery spice to it. The fried rice was great. After three minutes in the air fryer, the egg roll was fresh as new. Don't forget to ask for a container of the spicy mustard. Whoo! Hot!

The food was terrible, disgusting, and salty. The customer service was horrible. They are scammers.read more

Inside

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Menu 1

Panda Country Restaurant

3.4(474 reviews)

0.2 mi

After reading the reviews I see a common theme of either 4 or 5 stars or 1 star usually due to bad…read moreservice. I have been coming to hands country for 3 years and never experienced this or observed it. The staff does seem to speak limited English and I think patrons see take this as rude. You should give them a try. The prices are excellent considering McDonalds is comparable in price for less. The food is consistently good and I've been here 30+ times. Yes if you go to mira Mesa or san diego you can get more authentic Chinese cooking but for American style Chinese utvis good. The portions are on the larger size. They are almost never full but its because they have so much take out orders that the restaurant almost always has space. It's always clean. Last thing I will say is my wife is Chinese so I have tried everything San Diego has to offer, and spent weeks in China. This restaurant in my opinion is very good considering the food taste and portions, price, good service and ease of parking with no waiting. If you haven't tried them you should, if you have and didn't like, give them another try. Skip a fast food dinner and give them another shot, for about the same price. I recommend them.

Surprised that on a Saturday night there weren't many people but then again it was lightly raining…read more It's in the Vons shopping plaza so s good location. Seems authentic based on walking in. Dad had sweet and sour chicken which he enjoyed. Vegetarian egg rolls were yummy. Mooshoo chicken delightfully messy and tasty. With respect to pad Thai, perhaps the Chinese version is meant to be different? Very spicy, heavy on noodles, had a lot of green peppers and very little chicken. No nuts. Not a huge fan of this style. But the moo shoo chicken made up for it.

Adorable

Chow mein

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La China Restaurant

3.9(321 reviews)

2.9 mi•Fletcher Hills

I moved here after my wife passed and was lucky enough to be close to this restaurant. It's good…read morefood. My brother retired from Air Canada and I'd call him a foody. He's visited over 100 countries and has written and published 2 cookbooks. So I took him here when he visited. He loved it. So I have to write this review and place my name on the long list of fans for La China restaurant. -Robert Charlton.

I can't explain how happy I am to have found this place! La China brings back the original tastes…read moreand flavors of Chinese food I grew up loving! Real old school Egg Foo Young and Real Orange chicken or beef etc. Done the right way, the old school way and tasty and better by far then then the new crap! Just GO and enjoy!

Inside seating

Good, piping hot small egg flower soup.

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Table condiments include a delicious array of soy sauce and hand sanitizer

New Century Buffet

2.9(351 reviews)

2.3 mi

I sampled a bit of almost everything. No complaints about the taste of the food. my biggest…read morechallenge is that if I pay $14 for a meal I want it to be hot. That was not the case today. The help seemed to be friendly, even more so to the regulars. I did feel that a soda or tea should have been provided in the price. If the steam tables were keeping the food hot this would be a solid 4 star review. Can't complain about the variety. there was a little of everything.

Not like buffet food from the 90s but it's ok. I drove down here from Escondido. There was a great…read moreplace in Poway back in 1990 but they're long gone. But this is the only place I know now.

Donde agarramos la comida

Broccoli and beef, bean sprouts, butter shrimp

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Another great sauce

Panda Express

2.7(131 reviews)

0.2 mi

Service was good, but homegirl gave me the wrong order Hannah Montana smh but it's all good in the…read morehood lol

there's a weird phenomenon at this store where everybody speaks spanish. that's not a challenge for…read moreme. i speak russian, german, spanish and parts of 20 other languages. but they don't do things professionally, especially the manager ernestina. the original order of a large pepper steak entrée was messed up by her, only filling it 2/3 of the way full, additionally the meat was very low quality corporate sent me a coupon to fix the original problem so i went back to the same restaurant with ernestine as the manager. from the panda express parking lot, i chose the panda express which was 20 feet from my car, which was this restaurant and placed the replacement order of a black pepper steak large entrée. when i went inside, we figured out that the automated system had accidentally placed the order for a restaurant 20 minutes away. instead of killing that order and simply filling a large entrée box with black pepper steak for me, the manager ernestine decided the best thing for me to do was drive 20 minutes away to the other restaurant and would not simply give me the large black pepper entrée in her store my family has owned restaurants most of my life, unfortunately not here in california manager ernestine does not understand customer service, nor having the highest interest of the customers i can't believe she forced me to drive 20 minutes away to another panda express instead of simply filling my order, which was right under the glass in front of me. the corporation as a whole is very good and i normally have very good customer service, but this female does not understand the responsibility of a manager. THE ANSWER IS NEVER TO MAKE THE CUSTOMER DRIVE 20 MINUTES TO ANOTHER LOCATION INSTEAD OF SPENDING ONE MINUTE, FILLING THE ORDER IMMEDIATELY IN THE STORE.

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Stone Monkey

5.0(2 reviews)

2.4 mi

Had the chance to try them at the North Park Vegan Fest and was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the…read morequality and affordability of such a delightful pop up!!!

Note: This is a food stand that pops up at places, not sure if the physical address they list on…read moretheir website actually serves food. Finally got to try this at the Vegan Oktoberfest at First Friday Night Market at Grossmont Center, my wife and I wanted to this it out when they had their weekly pop up at Sepentine Cider but that ended before we had a chance to get down there. Food was very tasty, they do a great job of creating a vegan alternative to Chinese food that looks legit and has the very similar flavors and textures, less the meat! We tried the Gua Bao Buns first, PERFECT! Not sure how they do it, but these look like almost like real pork belly, and flavors and textures were great! Definitely took the spotlight because this is a dish you wouldn't normally expect to look and taste this good. We also had the Sweet & Sour Pork, super tasty also, but it's a type of food that is more expected at a stand like this. So glad we finally got to try it, definitely worth it and will keep an eye out for their next pop up.

Gua Bao Buns

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Food stand

Panda Express

3.1(113 reviews)

2.6 mi•Bostonia

Every time I come to this location, the staff is always on it and polite. They work like they…read moreactually enjoy what they are doing. They handle the busy rush pretty well, along with those to go orders that come through. The food is freshly made and I never have any issues with the quality. The inside is also pretty large for dining in and they have some outside seating available.

Work provided lunch from Panda Express on Broadway in El Cajon…read more I ordered a Plate. My choices were chow mein for the side and broccoli beef for the entree. It arrived at my desk in a sturdy container (not Styrofoam thankfully!) and still hot. The container was loaded. The ratio of its contents wasn't the best. Probably 60% chow mein 30% broccoli and 10% beef. They skimped on the beef, but it all had that MSG goodness. LOL! It was good. Even better, it was free.

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Panda Express

2.2(59 reviews)

2.7 mi

The worst Panda Express I ever saw I made order It was…read moreterrible We did order, honey shrimp teriyaki chicken But the order was totally different We did get inside the car. My son started crying.

Very, very bad service. Makes you wait for a long time for food and then won't let you have cup of…read morewater when requested. Claimed they were out of water cups. Manager Jael was flippant and rude. Don't seem to care about the customer experience at all. Got my order wrong last time but gave them another try. Will not go again to this location