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Tianchu Restaurant

2.3 (191 reviews)
ModerateKorean, Chinese

Tianchu Restaurant Photos

TIANCHU RESTAURANT ATMOSPHERE

What's the vibe?
Casual
Classy
Moderate noise
Good for kids

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Recommended Reviews - Tianchu Restaurant

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干锅虾
Jenny Z.

I haven't been here since college (2013) and I heard their management changed. I saw a lot more Szechuan food, street food this time. My brother and I got the 干锅虾, a spicy shrimp dish. The spice and flavor were delicious and there were some tofu, beans, zucchini, carrots, and onion as well. I enjoyed the fried tofu. They had a great crispy ness. I got the Beef Chow Fun. The beef was cooked to a good texture. I only knocked off a star because they didn't have a lot of the dishes we initially wanted to order (no lamb today, no crab, and the fish would have taken an hour to boil).

87. Chicken with Mixed Vegetables
Daniella X.

I love this place ! They can do very transitional Chinese and Korean food, also Chinese American food ! It taste s truly good. I went to school in MI so I used to be a regular client there and now I went back again it still taste as great ! and it opens late.

Steamed bun, happy family tofu, ginger fish dish
Ellie B.

Mmmm, a cozy and delicious meal. Came here for a birthday and had a great time. The green onion steamed buns were perfect in flavor and texture, and the happy family tofu was deliciously cooked! They also have a lengthy menu, including many flavors of bubble tea. Definitely come here for an authentic, low key dinner!

miso soup
Jason C.

Tianchu took over the Rio Wraps place on East Williams, which has been empty for some time. The name will throw you off, because they advertise themselves as Korean restaurant, but the name is Chinese... either way, I was looking forward to the place opening up. Got the word they were open, so met up with two buddies of mine to have lunch. I had picked up the menu the night before since I was in the area, so I studied the menu before I went. We got seated and ordered the following items: - Kimbap ($3.50) - Spicy Rice Cake ($6.95) - Kimchi Fried Rice ($7.95) - Steamed Dumpling - 8 pieces ($5.95) - JiamPong (Spicy Seafood Noodle Soup) ($8.95) - Jjajangmyeon (Noodle with Bleak Bean Sauce) ($8.95) We placed the order, the server said, we get two soups, but will bring three, soup options were: Egg Drop, Hot & Sour and Miso. We all ended up ordering one of each. The Hot & Sour and Egg Drop soup is what you would expect from typical Chinese restaurant. I had the Miso soup and I wouldn't consider this a miso soup, rather Seaweed soup with tofu and some hint of miso. The taste was okay... I would think twice about ordering this soup again. As for banchan, you get five items: Kimchi, Radish Kimchi, Cucumber & Mushroom Kimchi, Potato and meat stir fry and dried tofu dish. Of all the items in the banchan, potato was the best. Kimchi was not good, the radish kimchi was not fermented enough. Kimbap - a typical Korean kimbap must have: carrots, seasoned radish, spinach, egg, and either Spam, hotdog or kimbap sausage. These five make up a true Korean Kimbap... now, there are different varieties out there... those with bulgogi, fish cake, and additional items. I would rate the Kimbap at 3 stars, although my buddies stated that they did not like it. Spicy Rice Cake - if I could give a negative star for this dish, I would. The rice cake was overcooked, mushy and overall taste was not comparable to a typical Spicy Rice Cake. It was more of stir fry with vegetables, rice cake, chili powder and some chili oil. It really had no taste and I was beyond disappointed with this dish. I would highly recommend that you SKIP this dish. Kimchi Fried Rice - the key ingredient in Kimchi Fried Rice is 'Kimchi'. Kimchi makes or breaks the fried rice. If the Kimchi served with the banchan is good, then expect good fried rice, but if the kimchi served with your banchan is mediocre... you'll have issues... One of my buddies took a spoon full of kimchi fried rice; thereafter he could not eat any more and gave up. My other buddy and I ended up eating the fried rice. It was edible, but it's not something that I would order again. Steamed Dumpling - this is Chinese style dumpling, we think it's homemade. The dumpling wasn't bad, the dipping sauce needs to have little more vinegar to make it little sour, but overall, we all enjoyed the dish. Jiam Pong - I don't know what to say, Jiam Pong flavored Ramen tastes better. The soup broth is oily and not spicy enough. The noodle was little over cooked. Emerald City has better Jiam pong and I'm not a fan of their jiam pong. Jjajangmyeon - Chappagetti taste's better in my opinion (that's the Ramen version). The noodle again was over cooked. Not enough sauce. I could make the sauce at home myself... the sauce had onion, zucchini, pork and that was about it... Service - the wait staff kept asking us if we were done and if we were expecting more dishes. As a wait staff, they should know if we got all of our food or not and not ask the customer if we were expecting more dishes. Otherwise, the service itself was decent. The wait staff checked on us, filled our drinks, etc. When we asked for more banchan, he brought them out. Overall, their food takes on lot of Chinese flavors, so if you truly crave Korean food, think twice about going here. But if you want Korean food and because all other Korean places close at/around 9pm, you may have no choice, unless you want to wait until next day. Folks will go here because they are open late. I know that I will not go back, knowing that there are other Korean restaurants that serve better Korean food. So I can't really recommend anyone to give the place a try... that is up to you and you alone! All I'm going to say is, I was disappointed with the food itself.

Mapo tofu
Steven L.

Probably the most delicious and authentic Chinese in Michigan (even in the United States). Food is good, staff is friendly, place is clean. Not sure why the rating's so low but I would definitely recommend trying this place out, especially if you are a fan of 东北菜 (Northeast) and 四川菜 (sichuan). -From a Chinese Foodie

Sesame chicken, lunch portion to go.  Very deceiving portion size.
Sarah C.

I have no problems with this place. Its a little pricey but so is everything in the neighborhood so not surprising. The staff is super efficient and was friendly. The moment i was ready to order, my order was taken. I ordered for take out and the food was ready in less than ten minutes. I ordered a lunch portion of sesame chicken. It was about a ten minute walk home but the food was still piping hot when i got home. It looked like less food than it was, seemed like more rice than anything but the container was packed with chicken. It waw good, tasted like sesame chicken i would get anywhere else. I ate enough to be full and still had enough for another meal later. Overall, this is a good place to get fast food style asian food. They have all sorts of delights on their menu that i would like to try including bibimbap. I would def give it a try if you are in the neighborhood. Don't be put off by all the negativity. By the way people who complain about minimum gratuity on dine in food are cheap bastards who dont want to pay for the service they receive. They would rather stiff their minimum wage servers who are indeed providing a service. FYI IF YOU DONT WANT TO/CANT AFFORD TO TIP, EAT AT HOME OR GET TAKE OUT. DONT GO OUT TO EAT AND STIFF YOUR SERVER. YOU SHOULD PAY FOR SERVICE.

Rice with "kou shui ji" - cold spicy chicken and a side with eggplant and potatoes (probably a one pot dish).
Charmaine C.

Hmm. I think 2.5 would be right for this joint, in that I'm quite on the spot about how to rate it. First, I have to say I love the way the inside of the place looks, which is much nicer than it looks from the outside. It's a comfy place that looks Asian (wooden tables and such) without looking gaudily so. It's clean inside and they do this thing with pairing 1 white and 1 green chopstick together which is aesthetically pleasing. There are pictures of various dishes on the walls, for those who would like to know what they are ordering. I was brought here by a Chinese friend! Apparently there is some wechat group (wechat's a popular Chinese app) for this restaurant and the restaurant uses that to advertise its menu. My friend was dying to try it out the food here particularly because they offered Northeastern Chinese food. My friend explained a little bit about Northeastern Chinese food. It is often considered non-delicate by some because it's served in cold regions, often cooked all in a pot, and does contain a fair bit of oil and starch. Our "lunch box" was rice with two sides. The sides were a stewed potato and eggplant dish, as well as a cold "kou shui ji", which is a spicy chicken dish. It's apparently pretty normal to have cold dishes served in northeastern China, as hot dishes may take a while to make. Portions were huge and I definitely had enough left over for a next meal. I really liked the eggplant and potato side, but it was distinctly starchy with a gloppy probably flour-based sauce, so it won't appeal to everyone. I definitely needed to adjust to having cold chicken with the meal, but it was not bad in taste. I did not think the rice was great - it was a little dry. The lunch box itself was $10.50 before tax and tip. Service was somewhat inattentive, with having to wait a little to be seated and also for the bill. They served the food pretty fast after we came, but the lunch box had been ordered in advance. They did enforce a mandatory tip on us as well of around 15%... so I could see how that could rub people the wrong way. With the way asian food goes in Ann Arbor, this may well be the best northeastern Chinese food in town, not that that says very much!

a large plate of food on a table

I used to eat cold noodles in this restaurant. But today, everything about the cold noodle was good but the eggs were bad. It tasted with a hint of sulphur. And now I am having diarrhea and stomach ache. I ate my partner's egg, so she is okay now. The service was good, but the food safety is concerning.

The disgusting steamed pork bun.
Portia H.

This is honestly the WORST food I've had in this decade. Yes, I said "in this decade". I saw the reviews, but still decided to try it because I really, REALLY wanted steamed pork buns. I'm so sorry I ever doubted you, my fellow Yelpers. I took one bite of the steamed pork buns and literally gagged. I now feel nauseous and light headed. The dough was unnaturally thick and rough in texture and the meat didnt look "real". It look eerily similar to the meaty looking dog food. So, basically I had to GNAW through the bun to reach unbbq'd DOG FOOD. Im starting to feel sicker and sicker by the minute. It wasn't just badly prepared food, but contained cheap, subpar INGREDIENTS... and it was evident by the smell and sight. Not to mention, they didn't follow my requests (no tapioca in the bubble tea). They used too much dried onion soup in the Wonton soup base (yes, all of that happened). On top of that, the delivery guy looked like a psycho killer. With all of this going on, I'm surprised I made it out alive. I think I'm going to call the the Health Inspection Department on Monday morning to report this...and I've NEVER done that for any restaurant. This place ought to be ashamed and the city of Ann Arbor should board this place up. Beware, friends. This food is dangerous.

Sam G.

This pains me to write. I was avoiding writing this review because I really, really liked the waitress (quite possibly also the owner?) - extremely warm and kind. I also liked the interior quite a bit - simple, clean, cozy. But if I am to rate the food I have to go with two stars, regardless of my desire to go all soft and give them a three- or four- star review. My partner and I split a variety of dishes for dinner. The best part of the meal was actually the rice (which was perfectly steamed and really flavorful). Steamed dumplings were pretty decent as well. The ban chan (the little appetizer dishes traditionally served with Korean food) were uneventful and bland. First time around we ordered Korean (Jap Chae and Mapo Tofu). Dishes fell short. Lots of oil, not a lot of flavor. The BiBimBop was good but BiBimBop is a really hard dish to mess up! Second time around we thought maybe we had missed something so we ordered from the Chinese side. The sweet and sour sauce was electric red and syrupy, with a little bit of sweetness and nothing else. The chicken seemed fairly processed. If you can imagine what you would get if you ordered this from McDonalds, that's what it was. If the food was better I could see myself going to the restaurant regularly - it has that kind of vibe that makes me want to be a regular. But the food really needs to decide what it is. As it is now, it is neither good Chinese nor good Korean. I'm with another reviewer - please, please get a better chef, so I can give you the rave review I want to give you!

Cassidy P.

First of all, I'm not a big fan of Korean food. Or at least, not Korean BBQ (which describes most of the restaurants where I lived in the Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco). Typically I think of it as very meaty, with lots of pickled stuff on the side. But, I walked in here, told them I wanted something not too heavy, spicy, with fish and they brought me a very tasty (huge) noodle dish chock full of all sorts of different seafood (see pic, I'm afraid I forget the name right now). Recommend this dish, specifically. Also, the waitress was super nice and very helpful! I came back for a second time and got a special (steam bun) to go. As others have noted, specials here aren't great. It took a very long for the to go food to come out and then it turned out that their "green onion" bun have pork in them (foolish me for thinking you'd need to be explicit about this on your menu). Wasn't super happy about that and although they replaced the food, it took forever and made for a less-than-happy second experience. But the seafood dish was good and my first waitress was very nice, so I have to give them 3 stars.

Ke D.

I went there twice. The first time I ordered a lunch special, it was okay. The second time I ordered a bibimbap and an eel over rice. They were AWFUL!!!!! Really bad service. The food is not authentic at all, and the portion is not worth the money spent. NOT RECOMMENDED!

two containers of rice and vegetables

Fried rice wasn't fried. They used frozen carrots and peas. Barely any sausage in Taiwanese Sausage Fried Rice. Will not return.

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7 years ago

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2 years ago

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1 year ago

Love this place! They have great authentic Chinese food for a reasonable price. Love the family owned atmospher. I definitely recommend!

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2 years ago

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6 years ago

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4 years ago

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4 years ago

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17 years ago

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8 years ago

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2 years ago

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6 years ago

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8 years ago

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8 years ago

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4 years ago

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13 years ago

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14 years ago

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15 years ago

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13 years ago

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16 years ago

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13 years ago

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5 years ago

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8 years ago

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8 years ago

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8 years ago

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4 years ago

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6 years ago

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9 years ago

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11 years ago

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15 years ago

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10 years ago

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15 years ago

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11 years ago

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14 years ago

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14 years ago

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16 years ago

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12 years ago

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12 years ago

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7 years ago

The price is normal (~$13) for the area. Water has a weird taste but the eggplant was delicious.

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11 years ago

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Tianchu Restaurant Reviews in Other Languages

Ask the Community - Tianchu Restaurant

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Evergreen Restaurant - Chicken fried rice

Evergreen Restaurant

3.4(386 reviews)
2.5 mi
•$$

The food amazing, but the service was slow as molasses. We arrived after dinner time and were…read moreseated right away, this location uses iPads for menus which is a bit confusing. After scrolling through the menu for a good 5-6 minutes we had still not been greeted by anyone so we figured maybe we needed to order through the iPad. Another 5 minutes of clicking later and I was getting a little frustrated. Nobody was making eye contact, but there were servers all around delivering food. At this point we were around the 15 minutes since sat mark and still no acknowledgment. I flagged down a host and asked if we had a server, he replied yes and then looked around frantically. Within 3 minutes our server came over for a drink order, and we let her know we were ready to order as well. She went off to grab another tablet and promptly took down our requests. Within 5 minutes our food was on the table and it was delicious!! I don't want to say that it made up doe the frustration and time waited, because it didn't, but I thought it was very good. We ordered the beef wide noodles, scallion pancakes, beef with broccoli, wonton soup, and garlicky green beans. The beans were the favorite of the whole table. I thought the interior was very nice and modern, think upscale Chinese. I would come back for the food, but if service is the same I will not be returning..

Evergreen was noticeably busy when we walked in for dinner. It is a very nicely decorated modern…read moreAsian style restaurant. Everything was clean and we were sat right away. It did take a little bit to get waited on, but I believe they just had a bunch of tables come in at once just before us. The waitress was very nice and was right on top of the service all the way through. We ordered a few dishes to share and then each got a wonton soup to start. We ordered a scallion pancake appetizer. Next, we got an order of the beef wide noodles, beef with broccoli, and the star was the garlic green beans. All of the food was tasty, wide noodles and green beans were the two favorite dishes. Our waitress recommended trying a lamb dish the next time around. After the initial wait, our experience was awesome. The food arrived super fast and the drinks were always filled. I would definitely try it again when we are in Ann Arbor.

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Evergreen Restaurant - Wontons

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TK Wu - Sesame chicken to go

TK Wu

3.4(303 reviews)
0.1 mi•Downtown, Downtown Ann Arbor
•$$

Great food and budget friendly for students. The two ladies…read morewho assisted us are both warm and friendly and even explained our bill to us with taxes. Place is clean, well lit. Definitely a must try!

I am new to the Ann Arbor area and coming from Southern California so I have a baseline of really…read moregood Chinese food. This was not it. I should have listened to the average rating. The host was responsive. The food came out of the kitchen incredibly fast. It had that hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant feel. But that's about it. That's the 2 stars. The hot and sour soup got the taste balance and broth right but the ingredients were a disappointment, too much tofu, too much egg, not enough wood ear and/or black mushrooms, scandalously few shredded bamboo shoots (which also clearly came from a can). The wok hei for the mu shu pork was not good; too greasy and again, the ingredients were really inadequate (way too many onions, zero cabbage, scant protein). The hoisin sauce clearly came out of a bottle (way too sweet and flat) and here's the death blow - thick flour tortillas, not those thin Mandarin pancakes. I mean, the thinness of the pancake is the whole point - it is NOT a "Chinese burrito" (a phrase that is an insult to burritos, mind you). The last dish was ma po tofu. For me, a good ma po tofu is all about flavor balance - do you understand between straight up heat from the chili and the numbing of Sichuan peppercorns? They do not understand, this was so overwhelmingly peppercorn that it seemed pretty apparent that someone just equated "hot" with peppercorn and then added chili oil. Again, scant protein. I usually give a place a couple tries because anyone can have an off day. I won't be back. This is a kitchen quality problem, not an off day.

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TK Wu - Fortune

Fortune

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Asian Legend - Scallion Onion Pancake Wrapped with Beef

Asian Legend

3.2(216 reviews)
0.1 mi
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I tried this restaurant for the first time with an Asian friend of mine who was in town visiting…read more Super glad she recommended it. We had the onion pancake, the pepper salt crispy chicken, and the chicken with basil (bone in). The flavors of all were so delicious. I found the bones in the chicken with basil to be annoying, but the flavor to be worth the effort. My friend recommended trying the beef noodle soup next time I come back, and I will definitely be back!! The service and ambiance weren't spectacular, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a special date night, but it's certainly worthy of a quick dine in or takeout opportunity.

I thought this review would write itself. I only had half a (small) bagel all day and was starving…read moreby the time I walked into this restaurant, after 3 pm. The restaurant was nearly empty, with 2 guests sitting at opposite ends of the dining room. As I waited to be seated, I realized there was a third presence: the fragrance of something lovely coming from the kitchen. It reminded me of my dad's cooking. When I inquired about the wonderful fragrance, the server was unfortunately unable to pinpoint what the chef was preparing. I was glad to see a bilingual menu and ingredients not typically seen at a Panda Express. I ended up ordering the crispy duck and stewed beef over rice. Both were disappointing. The crispy duck was mainly bones. I have had duck many times, so I was surprised by the meat-to-bone ratio. The stewed beef was okay; I liked the individual components, fried egg, veggies, beef, but thought the best part was the brown sauce over rice. The milk tea was good, but the tapioca boba bubbles were neither chewy nor tender. Service was fine. Please note that guests are charged an 18% service fee, plus an additional 3% for credit card use. I appreciated that signage for both charges was prominently displayed at the front of the restaurant.

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Asian Legend - Building front

Building front

Asian Legend - Not sure what any of these are called in English, but once again, ALL DELICIOUS!

Not sure what any of these are called in English, but once again, ALL DELICIOUS!

Asian Legend - The tapioca balls were hard, not chewy.

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The tapioca balls were hard, not chewy.

Gai’s Kitchen

Gai’s Kitchen

4.4(5 reviews)
0.3 mi•Main Street

Highly recommended! Everything is authentic especially Mapo tofu. We ordered Mapo tofu, pig hand,…read morefried port, and chicken. As a Chengdunese, I can feel the favor is so authentic. The only pity is that there might have no walking chicken (走地鸡) US, so it tastes quite plain. Anyway, I highly recommend this restaurant to those who miss the taste of home.

Don't make the same mistake we made and try to dine in here; I repeat, this is NOT a dine in…read moreoperation, I repeat, not for dine in LOL. Gai's Kitchen is located inside of Bethlehem Church and when they say kitchen, they really mean it, there's no dine in or host stand to place an order haha. Despite this though, my friend and I were allowed to eat here in the church cafeteria adjacent to the kitchen after stumbling our way into the church and placing our order online, but just so everyone is aware this is for pickup, take out or DoorDash really. Now on to the food! My favorite thing we ordered was the Leshan Beef soup, so comforting, warming, and flavorful! Xiao, the owner, was kind enough to teach us how to best enjoy it which was to first take a sip of the broth, have some of the veggies, then dip the beef into the chili powder. The billionaires fried rice was unfortunately a bit under seasoned but at least the portion size was quite generous. The mapo tofu was very authentic and the numbing spice they used was top notch, although Xiao did mention that they would hopefully be moving towards using a more tender cut of tofu than the medium/hard tofu they're currently using which I think would be delightful. The snowflakes dumplings were good although I question how well the crispness of the dumpling lace will hold up during carry out considering we got to have these fresh. All in all very promising and authentic, I'm excited to see what else might make it onto the menu and how things might still improve from here, they're working out some kinks with the soft opening and they've only been open for 2 weeks!

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Gai’s Kitchen
Gai’s Kitchen
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Tianchu Restaurant - korean - Updated October 2026

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