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South China

3.8 (402 reviews)
InexpensiveChinese, Malaysian
Open • 11:30 am - 9:30 pm
Updated over 3 months ago

South China Photos

Business Info

SOUTH CHINA ATMOSPHERE

What's the vibe?
Casual
Quiet
Dogs allowed
Good for groups

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The Pan Mee and Chicken Noodle Soups
Michael C.

Here on a warm Fall day for some variation on typical Chinese food (Malaysian) and wound up at South China in Del Ray. An unassuming store front greets you to a basic 4 walled restaurant. But again, one doesn't typically need a fancy restaurant to get great Chinese food. The difference I found between traditional Chinese and the Malaysian is more of an Indian twist on staples (more spices and some spicier options), distinct soups and the noodles. On the latter, rather than the wide egg noodles are yummy fried and chicken noodles. As for soups, you've got to try the Pan Mee (House Special). It is unique with a chicken base, mushrooms, fish balls and mustard greens. Outstanding! We also pigged out on the Sayang Meehoon, which is the aforementioned fried rice noodle adorned with plentiful tofu and shrimp in a spicy soy bean sauce. Don't say that Chinese food is boring because it's all the same. We were impressed with the variety and quality, and I suspect you will be too.

Sesame Beef
Bradley L.

Ordered pickup on a Sunday afternoon around 5PM. I had no issues with the pickup or the payment at all. We ordered off their website and were able to pickup our order easily within 20 minutes (could have been faster but we were able to choose the specific time of our order) We got the sesame beef and general tso's chicken. Both were really good. The sauce was delish and both our dishes came with some steamed broccoli which I always like to use as a sauce sponge. My beef was a bit hard to get through, but using a knife I was able to get it into smaller more manageable pieces.

Chicken Fried Rice, Szechaun Crispy Beef, Szechuan String Beans, Kung Pao Chicken
Soo C.

Their food is great! This is more of a carry out place. If you decide to dine in, they will bring your food in the take out containers and you can eat there. Nothing fancy about this place. It's styrofoam plates and plastic forks however the food is delicious. Crispy egg rolls in a thick wrapper, crab Rangoon with a thick skin and tasty filling, the extra crispy kung pao chicken is dynamite! Their crispy Szechuan beef is awesome and their salt and pepper tofu was such a delicious surprise as well. The service is fast and the suggestions on what to order have been great every time! My nephew found this place while looking through pictures on google with white Chinese take away boxes and styrofoam and said this is what I want. American Chinese food and this place absolutely hits the spot. We've dined there in the summer and it's warm in there so keep that in mind if you plan to eat there. We prefer to have our food right when it's made so we toughed it out

Chicken and shrimp fried rice
Jada H.

I love food places that look a little "hole in the wall" ish. It's not a very big place and not a lot of decor but it gets the job done when it comes to Chinese food. The food was hot and delicious. We got plenty of condiments and our fortunes were good! My lo me in was a little oily but still enjoyable. I would order from here again!

General Tso Chicken, Szechuan String Beans, Crispy Beef
Huy N.

Very basic Chinese place. Zero atmosphere but good prices for decent food. Owner is nice. Other workers are so so. Loved the String Beans and Kung Pao Chicken. General Tso was also decent if ordered with light sauce. Give them a try if you're in the hood

Pork Fried Rice

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Great food and service. I've been ordering a large order once a month for about four years.

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7 months ago

This is a great go-to neighborhood restaurant with good food, good value and prompt service. I recommend.

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10 months ago

Best Chinese food in Alexandria. Fastest delivery. Best crispy beef I ever had anywhere!

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5 months ago

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3 years ago

Fast delivery and good Chinese food in the Del Ray area! Would recommend the hot and sour soup, orange chicken and crab wonton.

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7 years ago

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Hawkers Asian Street Food

Hawkers Asian Street Food

4.4(1k reviews)
5.2 mi•Ballston
•$$
Full bar
Catering service

My girlfriends and I had dinner at Hawkers Asian Street Food last night and it was absolutely…read moredelicious and perfect. The decor is fun, playful, and really creates a great atmosphere. The food all comes as small plates so it's perfect for a crowd that likes to order many dishes and share everything. Our server was very friendly and even brought us a complimentary espresso martini which was so good!

I love the concept of this place (and the backstory of it being started by five college friends!),…read morebut sadly wasn't impressed with the execution. Came with my family and we ordered a smorgasbord of things, way more food than we could reliably finish between four people. We got the Seoul hot chicken bao buns, curry laksa, roti canai, chili crisp wontons, jerk wings, gochujang salad, edamame, nasi lemak, and one other dish whose name I can't remember at the moment (told you we ordered a lot!). One of the standouts for me was the roti canai; I liked the texture of the roti and the curry it came with was flavorful (though it's a shame that it arrived after all the entrees, despite it being an appetizer). The nasi lemak was pretty good too. I can't say any of the other dishes we had were particularly good or memorable. Not a place I'd be able to recommend for its food, unfortunately. To add insult to injury, the service felt quite lacking. It started off well: we were greeted really warmly by one of the chefs (he also seated us because there was no host present at the time). He explained the concept of the place to us and gave us a preview of a family-style prix-fixe option they offered. After that, however, all semblance of "service" disappeared. Our server took our orders and delivered them to our table, and that was it. Things arrived in a super strange order; one person got a single entree while the rest of us looked on, then finally more things started arriving, but the whole thing just felt chaotic and strange. There was no friendliness, no apology, no information shared with us throughout. Though we were told our server would tell us more about the family style option, he never did; when I finally asked about it, he said he didn't tell us because he figured we'd wanted to get cheaper stuff since it was happy hour. I can understand the thinking, but shouldn't that have been our decision? Can't help but feel like he was making an excuse to gloss over his mistake. Speaking of happy hour, I will say that that seems to be one of the perks of this place. Five bucks for a few bao buns or some wings is pretty good in this economy! That's maybe the only reason I could see myself ever going back after this experience. Too many better places exist that I'd rather repeat or try. I should note that I started this review with a 3/5, since nothing seemed egregious, but by the end realized it was really more of a 2/5 experience between the meh food and the bad service. Had one of those been better, it'd def be a 3/5. P.S. Random sidenote: The "veggie-ish" menu was a bit confusing at first. All the items on the list seemed to have no meat, except for one -- the Vietnamese chicken salad. We had one vegetarian in our group so it stood out to us as a strange grouping of things on the menu!

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Hawkers Asian Street Food
Hawkers Asian Street Food
Hawkers Asian Street Food

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Padaek - Tum Lao

Padaek

4.3(1.1k reviews)
6.0 mi
•$$

Great news--Padaek is now open on Sundays! I stopped by today, September 6, for their very first…read moreSunday opening and had another wonderful meal. Everything was fresh, flavorful, and beautifully presented. We especially enjoyed the crispy rice salad, papaya salad, and grilled meats. The dishes had the bold, authentic Lao flavors that Padaek is known for, and the portions were perfect for sharing. Since Sunday hours are brand new, not many people seem to know about them yet. If you're looking for delicious Lao food this weekend, come support this wonderful local restaurant. I'm very happy that we can now enjoy Padaek seven days a week!

I personally prefer their Laotian food over their Thai food, although there aren't as many Lao…read moreoptions. Their Thai food's just alright for me. Naem Khao Thadaeu - Crispy coconut rice salad with peanuts, lime, cilantro, scallions, and chili, served with green lettuce wraps. Easily the best thing on the menu. It's a bit pricey for something that's basically all carbs, but it's very well made. Paa Tod - Crispy fish with spicy chili-lime sauce, lemongrass, mint, dill, cilantro, onion, and tomato. I can see how the seasoning might taste unique to some people, but as a fellow Southeast Asian, I thought it's just alright. I know their buffet was discontinued for a while and only recently restarted. I'm excited that it's back because for me,. it's the best thing about this place back then.

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Padaek
Padaek - Crispy Basil with Catfish

Crispy Basil with Catfish

Padaek - Bua loy dessert ($9)

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Bua loy dessert ($9)

Bonchon Alexandria, King Street

Bonchon Alexandria, King Street

2.7(88 reviews)
2.0 mi•Bradlee

I ordered using my BonChon App for pickup to take home for late dinner. My commute home is 45-60…read moremin depending on traffic from Alexandria. When I arrived to pick up, there was a woman helping hand out orders. I told her my name, she hesitated, looked through order bags on shelf, found a bag and handed it to me. When I got back home and my son opened it up, he discovered it wasn't our order. Even the name on the bag was wrong. The only thing close was the persons name on the order was the same first letter as mine. Ugh, I had already driven an hour to get home and was disappointed in myself for being in a rush since late work day and another hour to get food home, that I didn't at least checking the name on the order - let alone the contents like I normally do. I reluctantly called the store to report I was given the wrong order, afraid it would be difficult to find a way to refund since I wasn't going to drive an hour back to store. As luck would have it, I spoke with Roberto. He was very apologetic and offered to redo my order and I could pick up again in the future. He gave me his number so that I could give him a heads up when it would be convenient to stop by and he would have it ready. Two days later I texted him and he had it ready for my son to pick up when he was in the area again. Was such a relief for it to work out this smoothly to correct a mistake. Although the order pickup was unfortunate - the resolution and accommodation to correct completely minimized the inconvenience. Thank you Roberto! I won't hesitate to order from there again - the food was cooked great!

Bonchon is generally delicious. I have purchased Bonchon for several years. I usually go to the…read moreNavy Yard location, but I was in the area and visited the King Street location. I ordered the soy garlic wings and they were shockingly bad. I split the order with my friend and we both ended up tossing the wings in the trash. We waited until we were home to eat the wings. If we were still at the restaurant when we tasted the wings, we would have notified management. The location was very clean and the staff were friendly. I received my order promptly and it was accurate, but unfortunately it did not taste good. This was my first time at this location. I am hopeful that this was just a bad batch.

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Bonchon Alexandria, King Street - My friend and the great restaurant

My friend and the great restaurant

Bonchon Alexandria, King Street
Bonchon Alexandria, King Street

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Ginger - Main Dining

Ginger

3.7(844 reviews)
3.1 mi
•$$$

Went to Ginger for our annual team dinner and we all had a really good time. The drinks were good…read moreand so was the food. At the table, we shared the crispy spring rolls, fried dumplings and chicken wings as apps. We all enjoyed these, especially the chicken wings. Everyone enjoyed their drinks too - the lychee li, the mango margarita, the botanical, the sticky mango, the old fashioned, the baccarat. We all enjoyed them. For the food we had the thai basil beef fried rice, general tso shrimp, panang curry, singapore noodles, house style wok tossed soft noodles, seafood xo, and the wonton soup. Most of us tried each other's food because of the healthy servings and most of us enjoyed what we ate. Our waitress Minzhi was awesome - friendly, knowledgeable and funny. The restaurant manager Q was nice and attentive as well. They even gave one of our party members a mango sticky rice dessert (which was just okay - would've been much better if the mango was riper and sweeter) and sang happy birthday to her. Overall, we had a lovely time. Ginger is pricey so be mindful of that before you go but if you're celebrating a special occasion/milestone, it will be a nice change of pace.

We went here as a family of 7 celebrating a birthday. It was gorgeous and we were seated in a more…read moreprivate section to allow for more comfort for our large family event. The staff was very helpful in deciding what to pick and guiding us through the menu. However, as good as the items are, I do not truly believe that it matches the price point. They were good but lack luster in seasoning in some aspects and the presentation was mediocre for what it was. This is a great restaurant to try for the vibes and ambiance of dining in MGM but being so close to a hot spot of asian dining, there is plenty of better options within the area.

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Ginger - Dining Area

Dining Area

Ginger - Shrimp Pad Thai

Shrimp Pad Thai

Ginger

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Peter Chang - Pork Soup Dumplings

Peter Chang

3.6(670 reviews)
7.0 mi
•$$

Okay, I have to update my previous review. While I do still think the food is overall good, it is…read morequite strange that they use habenero peppers for a lot of the spice. The flavor profile doesn't quite work. Still, I do like the food as an easy filler. I recommend getting a fried rice with two 'small plates' which will be more than enough for two. Or... you will have to choose a single dish with a couple sides of rice.

Not sure what is going on here. Both the front and back of the house have dulled…read more This almost seems like déjà vu at this Peter Chang. We have gone through times where everything works well and others where the experience is as crisp as a soup sandwich. I clearly ordered a starter and stated I wanted the two entrées to arrive after that. The starter (crispy pork belly) and an entrée seafood pan fried noodles (entrée 1) were brought together. A little irritating but for the price point not end of the world,even though we purposefully pair these two entrées together for their contrast of heat to balance out the course. We finish the pork belly and seafood pan fried noodles and wait. Then we have to followup and ask where is our second entrée (stir fried chili beef). It had clearly been waiting in the kitchen. It was barely warm. PLUS there was NOTHING hot about the stir-fried chili beef. Something was clearly janky in the kitchen because we have had this dish before at this restaurant and liked it for the spice. My toothpaste had more spice than the dish we were served. The restaurant was not busy and was staffed well. I could see both in the kitchen and saw plenty of front of the house staff, so I can't give a pass for that. My recommendation is stay away for a while and HOPE things get sorted. If you do go, we had a starter, two etnrées, two white rice, a glass of wine, and a beer. Total price with 15% tip was $116. When (if) service and cooking improve, it could be a good value. I'm hoping....

Photos
Peter Chang - Interior with cool artwork

Interior with cool artwork

Peter Chang - Pork fried rice

Pork fried rice

Peter Chang - Bang Bang Shrimp. $14.00

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Bang Bang Shrimp. $14.00

South China - chinese - Updated October 2026

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