(9th review of 2021)
We've been lookin all over for good Chinese food that's at least close to what's at home in Hawaii. Unfortunately no luck so far. I was sooo excited when I finally found this restaurant that had "Chow Mein"! Woohoo!!!.... NOT!!! I'll get to this later.
Ok lemmie start from the beginning when wifey & I first walked in the restaurant. *bing* the entry door chime goes off. Ohh that was cute chime we both thought. Walk around to the inside where the front counter was.... "We only do take out!". Huhh?? What?? We look around kinda stunned by the abruptness in the voice. The young lady behind the counter & plastic sheet hanging from the ceiling yells at least 2 more times "We only do take out, no dine in!". Uhhh ok, we were gonna do that anyways. Wifey & I looked at each other & were thinkin the same thing... wow! no hi welcome.
Lookin over the take out menu I saw they had Chow Mein! Yeeessss!!! I finally found a Chinese restaurant up here that had it! I told the lady that I wanted the veggie Chow Mein. She said "uhh you know it's not the noodle dish". I said what?? She cut me off & said a little firmer voice, "it's not the noodle dish, there's no noodles. only have the veggies stir fried". Ok, then why don't you call it stir fried noodles instead of chow mein?? The definition of chow mein is "stir fried noodles" with meat/seafood & veggies. Seriously??? How can you call it that & serve it without noodles?? I grew up with making Chinese food & eating in Chinese restaurants that had chow mein & every single dish had "stir fried noodles" in it. Wow, ok well I ordered the $13.55 H5 Dragon & Phoenix, which was 1/2 General Tso's Chicken & 1/2 Hot and Spicy Shrimp. The lady said it comes with white rice... I thought ok good since I'm not getting any chow mein noodles. Wifey wanted the $12.95 H1 Happy Family, which was supposed to be jumbo shrimp, beer chicken, scallop crab meat, & mixed veggies w/ house-made brown sauce. She also got the $6.55 6pc Crab Rangoons cause she never had it before & wanted to try it. They don't have brown rice, wifey asked. The lady said they only have white rice & fried rice. She kept asking if we want fried rice, but we both said no thanks. By the way, all the descriptions of the dishes came from Uber Eats. China Rose's menus do not have descriptions, which is a little surprising. They do have some pictures in their menu & on their walls of what I guess are their popular dishes. While we were waiting we watched the cooks at work (kitchen was open to see) wifey & I noticed that out of all 3-4 cooks/helper the older guy who was a cook, was wearing his mask on his chin & not covering his mouth or nose. Uhh ok, I'm not too keen about that. After about 15min wait we got our food & left.
When we finally sat down to eat, which was about 1hr later, the food was still kinda hot. I thought "oh yippie!". I was digging into my Dragon & Phoenix & found the General Tso's Chicken to be dry & chewy. There was a lot of sauce & batter on the chicken. It was supposed to be spicy, but there wasn't any heat to it. Ehh wasn't thrilled about that part of the dish. Ok, try the Hot & Spicy Shrimp. First thing I saw was the frozen peas inside, not snow peas or snap peas, but regular round peas. The way I could tell it was frozen was that there were what looked like freezer burns on most of the peas. Hmmm, ok. I don't like peas so I scraped all the peas to the side to get to the shrimp. I don't remember seeing regular peas in a shrimp dish before. The shrimp looked fat & I was thinkin "wow, they're big!". Hahahaha... NOT! There was more batter on the shrimp than actual shrimp. Wow! I was so hungry & really hate wasting food, so I tried forcing myself to eat the chicken/shrimp dish. I had to stop cause I ate almost all the rice that came with it & I only ate a few chicken & shrimp. Both dishes were pretty salty & wasn't spicy whatsoever. Wifey opened her container & first thing she saw was BEEF in the Happy Family dish. Ummm, Uber Eats didn't say anything about beef being in the dish. Wifey can't have beef/pork. She was so hungry too that she pulled the 10pcs of beef out of the dish & started eating the 4pcs shrimp, a few pcs imitation crab, & the veggies. She wouldn't eat it all cause it was salty & couldn't get past the idea that they put beef inside. She tried the Crab Rangoons & said it was bland with jus the cream cheese & imitation crab. There was no seasoning in the mix. I tried one & agreed with her. The sauce that came with it kinda looked like sweet & sour sauce. I tried it & it was bland too & tasted like only the sweet part of the sweet sour sauce. Out of everything we had we threw away all the food except for the remaining white rice & fortune cookies. I've never seen mini fortune cookies, they were cute & tasted ok.
Hey, if you like this place more for you. Wifey & I won't be going back. My search continues.
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