Sadly closing, was the best Chinese place in chapel hill! Very sad, not sure where we will go now.

A nice small and clean space in the shopping center. Very friendly staff. Crisps were brought with no sauce but probably because I chose Hot and Sour soup to accompany my lunch. The soup was very tasty with just enough spice. My meal was was the Black Bean sauce with chicken and fried rice. It was tasty with a good balance of meat to vegetables and just the right amount for lunch. I will be back to try some other dishes. Deserves a 3.5 but can't give that with this app. read more

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The food here is solid, lots of great options and always something new to try. We often go for lunch and it's great. The prices are very reasonable and the staff is very friendly. read more

Should have known better to avoid the Chinese side of the menu when an early-listed item was "offal" !!!!! The alleged Chinese-side pork dish I ordered (priced at $19) was nothing but lard in a brown sauce - the most wretched restaurant entry ever served to me. Diners beware! Would have given zero stars if that was possible. read more

I've been coming to Red Lotus for years and years now, it's a staple Chinese restaurant in Chapel Hill. Pre covid the restaurant was always so busy, but now it's relatively quiet whenever I come. The food can be a hit or miss depending on what you order, and we usually order the same things every time because we know which dishes we like the most. We usually get the monk fish, wok braised green beans, and the assorted meat and vegetable casserole. These 3 are all so delicious! The casserole has soo much meat, veggie, and vermicelli in it, and the soup is so flavorful. Monk fish is cooked delicately every time and we love the black bean sauce. Green beans are a bit spicy but super tasty! We also tried the baked tofu with shredded pork and double cooked pork this time. The shredded pork dish had a bit too much ginger for my taste but otherwise was good! I wouldn't recommend getting the double cooked pork though, it was too soy saucey in my opinion. The owner was super kind and brought us a sweet, osmanthus soup dessert at the end of our meal. It was the perfect palette cleanser especially after some of the spicy dishes! Red lotus will always be a sentimental place to me and I can always count on it for a good familiar meal :-) read more

Red Lotus Asian Kitchen - Baked tofu with shredded pork, Assorted Vegetable and Meat in Casserole Soup, monk fish, Wok Braised Green Bean, Double Cooked Pork Belly - Chinese Near Me - Chapel Hill, North Carolina

I had lunch today from Red Lous, on a carryout basis, and was very happy with the meal. I tried the Chicken with Hot Garlic sauce and vegetables. You have a choice of rice (i chose fried) and soup or an egg roll -- I had egg drop soup. The soup and rice were OK, but the main dish was really good -- hearty ingredients and a nice spicy kick. While I was waiting for my order, I had a chance to sit inside for about ten minutes. For a strip mall restaurant, I thought that the ambience at Red Lotus was really relaxing, with nice soft jazz playing in the background. Highly recommended, and I will be back. read more

The older Korean lady rushed me so I chose something that I didn't want, then she acted like I couldn't get my money back when I found out egg was in it and I was allergic to eggs! Then she replaced it with a cheaper combo that I didn't want either and got my whole order wrong again and still didn't give my money back! Food was disgusting and I will never go here again not to mention every time he alls in there nobody was even at the front! read more

Very disappointing. Not worth what they charge. I was most disappointed in the friend chicken wings. They weren't even full wings. I do not recommend this place. read more

Red Lotus Asian Kitchen - $10 order of fried chicken wings - Chinese Near Me - Chapel Hill, North Carolina

This used to be a go to restaurant for me pre-COVID but unfortunately I think they switched chefs and now the quality is mediocre at best. The 松鼠鱼 and 腌笃鲜 were relatively good. The sweet and sour sauce with fried fish paired well and the soup was comforting. However, many ingredients for the stir fry dishes weren't adequately cut, cooked, or seasoned... Meats were too chunky and of different sizes, peppers were undercooked, and everything seemed lukewarm. Our party of 8 ordered 10+ dishes and many weren't memorable. For the price and relatively small portion sizes I would look elsewhere for Chinese food :( The servers were nice but the restaurant seemed understaffed. I hope this is temporary and also wish that the kitchen steps it up, since the dishes here were quite good before. read more

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Well, we're finally getting warmer in finding decent Chinese food. It doesn't even have to be good at this point. I tried the Mapo tofu and detected some spice in it which is better than most places and the vegetables appeared fresh so that was a plus. I also tried the sesame chicken which although I don't expect it to be spicy, it was very treacly sweet but a bit better than other places at least. The vegetable lo mein was good, lots of veggies though a bit over saturated with soy sauce. The lunch specials are really good with a choice of egg roll, soup or salad so you could do worse than a quick lunch here in this part of town. read more

Always fresh and delicious. We go almost weekly! Family owned and run. Wish they had a place in Durham.

Red Lotus has been on the Chapel Hill food scene for years and while we have frequented it on and off over time, it has become part of our COVID rotation when we need a break from the responsibilities of home cooking. Pickup is incredibly easy - you just pull up and if someone isn't already standing outside, you just call the number displayed clearly on the chalkboard, and one of the friendly staff will bring it right out in a securely packaged box. The menu is an amalgamation of different Asian styles and we've identified a few standing Chinese favorites including: --Stir-Fried Rice Cake with Shepherd's Purse and Shredded Pork --Sauteed Potato Noodles with Chicken --Sauteed Pea Sprouts --Wok Braised Green Bean --Salted Duck read more

Very average food. Oils seemed to be well overused. Portions are good but flavors not to good.

Well, we can cross this restaurant off our bucket list, and there'll be no return visit. The food we had was mostly average, or simply not to our liking in the least. The restaurant is located in one of the maze of strip centers between 15/501 and East Franklin Street, and it is on the smallish side, and rather dimly lit. The regular lunch menu is rather narrow, there are a few "daily specials" handwritten on a board, and there is a larger menu available, with a number of authentic Chinese dishes on it. After looking that menu over and finding nothing of special interest, we chose Dan Dan Noodles, Kung Pao Chicken, and Shrimp Fried Rice - soup (chose Wonton) and an egg roll (picked Beef) were included as sides. As we waited for our food, we munched on the complimentary appetizer, a type of crunchy wafer, with a dipping sauce, and we both enjoy them. Out first was the Wonton Soup and the Beef Egg Roll. The soup was superb, with some of the richest, most flavorful broth we've tasted. Unfortunately, the egg roll was a major disappointment, with very little beef, a bland flavor, and an underlying taste that was not especially pleasant. The Dan Dan Noodles were awful - the ground chicken (ground pork is always better, it seems) mixture was overcooked and the burnt taste was all you could sense, and there was no chile oil in the dish, it was very dry, and bland, with no heat. The noodles were decent, thought broader than most we've encountered in this dish (Super Wok, China Palace, Happy China), not especially a plus. The Kung Pao Chicken was also very bland, covered in a reddish sauce that seems to add nothing. There were more veggies than the classic version of this dish calls for - included were red and green peppers, mushrooms, a root vegetable of some ilk, and chopped carrot. Not a good version of a dish that can be excellent. The Shrimp Fried Rice was very, very good, once doused with a liberal amount of soy sauce. The shrimp were in good number, very fresh tasting, and perfectly cooked. In the final analysis, when your two best tasting items out of this order are Shrimp Fried Rice and Wonton Soup, you are most certainly not experiencing an excellent meal. The portions were plentiful, the pricing reasonable, and the service was efficient, if not especially engaging. This is obviously a family run business, as there was a 2 or 3 year old running around, and in & out of the restaurant, and once outside climbed on a bench and stared at us through the window at our booth for 10 minutes or so - not something I find appealing during a meal! read more

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We used to eat at Red Lotus a lot. After a break we decided to get dinner there last night. it was disappointing. We are vegetarian so always request soy "chicken" in our dishes. Soy chicken now puts the meal price in the shrimp category, two dollars more than real chicken. Really? So each dish was $16.95 and $17.95. When we opened our meal at home they had used real chicken in the curry dish. Not only charging us two dollars more than it should be but making it inedible for a vegetarian. The prices this restaurant are now charging are high and they need to be careful what they serve to people with dietary considerations. read more

Devastated that Monterrey's (next door) was unknowingly closed for renovations... my friends and I decided to finally try out Red Lotus. In my 7+ years here in Chapel Hill I had always seen/noticed Red Lotus but had never been. The interior is very nicely decorated and clean. We were Kindly greeted by the hostess, seated promptly, and well attended to by our waiter. We had trouble deciding what we wanted but our waiter was super friendly in helping us make our food decisions. We were set on getting three things from the "American-Chinese" menu until our waiter guided our attention towards the more "traditional Chinese" dishes. Being on grad student budgets, I chose to the mapo tofu and my other friends decided on the Thai green curry and the yum yum fried rice. The mapo tofu was different than what I was normally accustomed to. They used a firm tofu instead of a more silken tofu and so the texture was a little off for me, however, the taste was very good. The Thai green curry lacked the "curry" aspect and actually came on a plate vs. a bowl. The potatoes were super buttery (maybe a little too much) and esthetically could have had more colors to make it look more appetizing. (Our mistake for ordering a Thai dish at a Chinese restaurant). The fried rice was on the oilier side -- it contained "Chinese sausage" which had a "unique" after-taste. Overall, the portions were big and it wasn't too bad. Was not the best Chinese restaurant I've been to but also not the worst. read more

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I'm getting really tired of unimaginative Chinese food in this town. I ordered the Homestyle Black Bean Tofu from the Shanghai menu. It came prepared with onions and green peppers. While the tofu was reasonably good, it lacked flavor. This dish should be prepared with scallions and red chilies. Also the fried rice had nothing in it, not one lonely pea, corn kernel or carrot, What is going on? Red Lotus seems to be popular, so why are they cutting corners? I won't be back anytime soon. read more

Red Lotus Asian Kitchen - Black bean tofu Shanghai style - Chinese Near Me - Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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Not good. All the foods are not the type of taste I had in China. Really disappointed and will not go again. But the environment is delicate. Maybe native Americans will like the foods. Only recommend twice-fried pork 回锅肉. read more

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I would much rather go to Shanghai Dumpling, which is like 10 minutes away from this place. I suppose if you're craving some generic Chinese takeout, it'll do, but if you're actually looking for real Chinese food, don't come here. I paid $38 for 1 soup noodle dish and another stir fry dish, both of which tasted nasty and the texture was pretty off too. The guy at the counter said the portions were generous, but it didn't even fill up the standard plastic noodle container that soup noodles usually come in. Not only that, but we found what looked suspiciously like plastic in our stir fry. read more

Red Lotus Asian Kitchen - Chinese Near Me - Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Every dish is wonderful - a perfect ending is Sesame Balls! Crunchy and sweet taste. The Velvet Chicken soup is second to none. Our favorite go-to for Asian food. read more

Post Covid this place has radically fallen for any dine in consideration. Upon arriving I was greeted sternly by the hostess demanding my name for take out, calmly I replied I'd like to dine in to which she said sit anywhere, and went to help a takeout/delivery driver. A few minutes later she brought me a menu, having been several times pre-Covid I knew what I wanted to order and promptly did so. Service was slow, drink refills nonexistent, food was below what I'd come to expect on previous outings. Sadly another understaffed restaurant falling on hard times and failing as a business. They should close the dine in part of the venue to focus solely on their bland take-out faire read more

Ordered a giant pickup order all the food was fresh and delicious, ready on time, more authentic than the norm, and worth the price. The pork filled tofu skin rolls and crispy spicy potatoes are supremely delicious. This is really tasty. They impressed me more than any other restaurant in this area in our Covid takeout era. We will be getting more from them! read more

Some people lament the day Charlie's closed and when this place came in it was as if a brick wall replaced them with nothing to offer...you people confuse me. Charlie's, though high quality, was so lacking in flavor, an absence that this place totally delivers on. It's been years guys, give Red Lotus a try! I was a regular of the Red Lotus for their $7 lunch special from the first day they opened for quite a few months. They have some of the best Thai curries around and have accommodated my need for them to be "Mari spicy" , above and beyond their normal 10 (naming my spice level was also super cool) and also offering brown rice only further sweetens the deal. I'd love to comment on other menu items, but I'm smitten to the red and green curries. Served with the lunch entree is a soup or egg roll. While the egg rolls are delicious, their Hot & Sour soup is some of the hottest I've ever experienced without adding hot sauce, which is a big plus for me as well. It's a busy lunch over there, so plan accordingly if you decide to sit down. read more

We ordered off the Chinese menu, including the special order lobster and Peking duck three ways, and rice cake（荠菜年糕), shanghai vegetarian feast(素斋), rice flour pork belly (粉蒸肉). The rice cake dish is a crowd pleaser, and Peking duck three way was satisfying, although the duck fry bean sprouts and the duck tofu soup are a tad bland, but the crispy Peking duck roll part was decent. The lobster stir fry was definitely over priced--market value, we had to preorder so we got surprised when we get the bill on the day of dining out, $35 for that plate was way over average price at Chinese restaurants, compare to banana leaf or other places, it's a $10+ mark up(and H mart recently opened with live lobster special of $5.99/lb). The Shanghai vegetable dish was also a disappointment, counting it a Shanghai restaurant, this dish was not very authentic, rather more of a Chinese express quality. We were also let down to know there's no dessert option available, the sweet sticky rice lotus root dish in appetizer menu is not offered that day. We came in with higher expectation, and I must say I have had better experience there. To add on, there were only two waiters that day, and it happened to be quite busy, no one ever refilled our tea pot with hot water after we lifted it open to suggest refill needed; rice only came after we requested it and arrive half way though meal. read more

Red Lotus Asian Kitchen - Chinese Near Me - Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Pretty good food and great service. Good place for lunch in Chapel Hill. Doing a good job coming back from COVID.

**Lunch Menu** Nice little independent Chinese place that serves food similar in style and on a par quality-wise with PF Chang's. The price is right at lunch--protein and rice served with your choice of eggroll or soup and a drink for $8. I'm partial to the Zesty Orange Chicken. Even the spicy dishes aren't too hot, though you can add some of their great spicy mustard to anything if you want to blow the top of your head off. Their eggrolls are nicely crisp too, and the duck sauce has a nice flavor and isn't too sticky-sweet. They bring a bowl of wontons and duck sauce to the table when you arrive. Friendly servers and it's usually pretty quick. I've only been once at dinner and that was a while ago. I do remember the menu was much more extensive and expensive, though they had some good beer prices at the bar. Definitely a worthwhile lunch spot to get an Americanized Chinese fix though. read more

Always our go to Chinese restaurant for lunch specials or dinner. Great family owned place that's been around for years.

The Red Lotus is kind of an odd animal: a nicer-quality Pan-Asian restaurant that's desperately fighting to stay alive amidst the trudging poverty of the strip mall around it. The staff is very affable, even those whose English isn't great (although a surprising number of them speak with virtually no accent). The dishes are more expensive than I normally go for, but this is one of the only possible places around to go for decent Pad Thai. God, I love Pad Thai. Feed it to me. Now. Hard. Go ahead and give the Red Lotus a try. I doubt it'll replace one of the cheaper venues in the area as your go-to place for your Chinese cravings, but it provides a welcome bit of variety to the genre. Man, I love Pad Thai. read more

Red Lotus Asian Kitchen - Chinese Near Me - Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Red Lotus has been a staple of my family's for years. They have so many delicious options (I've loved everything I've had) and they have amazing lunch deals. They put out a little wonton chip appetizer for the table with a sweet duck sauce for dipping that is always a hit. Although the service can be a little slow sometimes, the food is always worth the wait. Tonight I ordered the vegetable lo mein and it was my first time trying it...I was not disappointed! It was the perfect portion size to fill me up without feeling stuffed at the end. This place is great for both dining in and take out. Worth a try if you're in the area looking for good Chinese/Asian cuisine! read more

Red Lotus Asian Kitchen - Vegetable lo mein (dinner portion) - Chinese Near Me - Chapel Hill, North Carolina

My wife and I dined here on Christmas Eve. We did not have reservations and it was extremely crowed. The manager was running around like crazy setting up new tables as they became open. The manager constantly touched base with us and apologized for the delay. Then my wife and I sat down and enjoyed a fantastic Asian dinner. The pot sticks were incredible. Our server Andrew was excellent! We would definitely recommend this restaurant and will dine here again soon! read more

I love their food on their authentic Chinese Menu. However, I was disappointed that a recent server attempted to talk me out of ordering from that part of the menu and suggested I would be happier with the Americanized Chinese menu instead. I did not bother to tell him I have been ordering from the authentic dishes menu for many years. read more

Have been going to this restaurant for 8 years since we moved here. It is consistently good every time across a variety of different dishes.

In the past, I liked it. Ordered many times. In the past six months, the mushrooms were sour twice, and the pickled fresh meat was richer in fat, while the lean meat and bamboo shoots were less and less. kind. The pickled fish is unpalatable with a small portion and thickened a lot, the worst pickled fish I have ever eaten. I used to like this restaurant very much, but it got worse and worse. My friends and I will never come here again. read more

Here's a Shanghai style Chinese restaurant with great food. My breakfast/lunch started with hot and sour soup, perfect. Followed by shrimp dumplings and Orange Chicken. The dumplings were heavily full of flavor worth a try. Awesome ! The Orange Chicken is beautiful with citrus overtones and peppers. Excellent! The staff are friendly and efficient. I have this spot bookmarked for the future! read more

Red Lotus Asian Kitchen - Shrimp Dumping - Chinese Near Me - Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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Straight up Chinese take out and great to have in your rotation of town restaurants. Rice is what Chinese food is all about and theirs qualifies. If you're from NYC, SF, lived in China, well, you'll be disappointed. But for many of us landlocked in the middle of the South, hey, they're unpretentious, their kids probably go to the local schools and they employ kids from the college. read more

What a gem! Great Chinese menu, and regular menu as well! You can request to have almost any dish made with soy chicken for a $3.00 upcharge I believe, but well worth it for vegetarians and omnivores bored of tofu and mixed vegetables. They also bring hot damp cloths to the table at the beginning of the meal to wipe your hands, which is an added plus. I had P5 Tofu Skins with Minced Pork from the Chinese menu, and my friend had a dish from the regular menu with soy chicken. Both were yummy, though here could've been a tad bit more spicy. read more

This is a great spot to pick up some to go food, especially if you remember to call it in ahead of time. The last time we placed an order, it did take about 25 minutes. I will say three of us ordered some form of the Buddha bowl, and all really liked it. The fourth person in our party ordered a noodle dish, and was surprised by the lack of vegetables. If you order any of the rice or noodle dishes, and want more vegetables, I would absolutely recommend asking for them separately. Overall a great spot, we've only done take out two times, I look forward to eating in one time! read more

Underrated. My favorite Asian food in Chapel Hill, give it a try if you haven't you won't be disappointed.

Does not answer their phones. Have been trying to order for the past 30 minutes --they don't even pick up. Their website (in late September 2022) says they're closed for a snow day in January. read more

Excellent food. Friendly staff. Great prices especially for lunch. Menus has great variety of Chinese and other Asian foods. Great for family or dates. read more