Empire Chinese Restaurant

Typical hole in the wall Chinese place. Frequented this establishment many times during college and was always satisfied. Cheap and huge portions. Never could go wrong, and the lady was also kind to me and would always give me extra rice when needed.

Good food! Chongqing dry chili chicken is super tasty, and the favorite dish I got when I visited. Some dishes were less impressive, but overall it is some good, authentic Chinese food for very reasonable pricing. Their milk tea is also surprisingly good, and cheaper than Chatime a few doors down!

This place is just right for students for its relatively low price and large dish. The taste is good, too, maybe not the best but indeed good. I will recommend it to people especially Chinese People.

The place is kinda dumpy but I like the food… This is one of the only places on campus that I’d get Chinese.

I’m gonna file this place under «popular, but I can’t understand why», along with a couple of other Chinese places on Green. Had two meals here — the first was a lunch special, Schezuan beef (comes with fried rice and an egg roll). This was actually okay. The meat tasted fine, but I would’ve liked the veggies to have been cooked a bit more. The fried rice was where I was having problems, it just tasted kind of off… not at all like the countless other fried rice dishes I have had. Egg roll was pretty good though, hot and crunchy! Based on this first dish, I thought I’d come back again.
Meal 2: Moo goo gai pan. Never had it before, so my first try was at this restaurant. ABYSMAL. I’m disappointed in myself for not taking a photo, but god damn, it was awful. Chicken tasted borderline undercooked, not to mention completely devoid of flavor. Same goes for all the veggies. Whole thing came in hot water «broth». Waste of money, and the kind of meal that makes you go «never again». I ended up throwing away most of it.
Other problems: Minimum of $ 10 (IIRC) for plastic, or else you get charged a fee. Place isn’t very nice/​clean, despite recent renovations. For whatever reason, closed on a rotating day of choice each week (although it seems to have settled on Thursday).
1/​5, AVOID.

Highly recommended! Same flavor as dishes in Taiwan! The best Chinese restaurant in champaign!

This is one of those stereotypical sit down Chinese restaurants that feature an eclectic menu. There’s nothing really special besides the free tea. I will say that the fried rice dish wasn’t enough to get me full sadly.

It is good for different dishes have different feeling. Not like other restaurants, all the dish may have the same or the similar taste.

When my wife was in vet school we ate here every week. The general tsos tofu was amazing as was the Mai fun and mu shu.
Every time we have been back to champaign in the past couple of years we made a point of going to Empire.
Today we stopped by and found that the inside of the restaurant had been gutted. No dining room or kitchen. I’m not sure if they are closed forever or they are just renovating, but I will miss this place.

I’ve been going to this restaurant for over 10 years, and it’s always consistently delicious.
I highly recommend the Hunan Pork and Pork Egg Foo Yong.
No other restaurant has come close to making the Hunan Pork as good as here.
The free tea is great as well!

Had some solid Pepper steak. Food seems decent overall and portions are priced well.

This place is a bit sketchy, and it’s best if you speak Chinese. But they do serve congee! Which is awesome – although not the best, only place I’ve found in town that does it so check them out if you’re feeling a bit under the weather. Otherwise, try out one of the other small Chinese places on campus for a less suspicious experience.

The price is reasonable, even small size is enough for average person’s lunch. Even though their menu include a free soup for lunch over $ 5, you have to ask for it, otherwise, they assume you don’t want the soup.

Tried the shrimp fried rice. I think it’s safe to say I’m never going back.

I used to live above Empire, so I became very well acquainted with their food. Their food is amazing, best Chinese food I’ve had hands down. The shrimp in their Shrimp and Broccoli dish was my favorite, most Asian restaurants give you very small low quality shrimps, but Empire’s are big jumbo shrimps and are good quality.
After graduating from U of I and leaving the area, I have yet to find a Chinese restaurant like it :/

This was definitely not my first pick when it came to Chinese restaurants, but I decided to come with some friends to try it out. I have to say that I had my doubts, but based on what we ordered, the food was actually alright. The staff was friendly and helpful and the food came out pretty quickly. We got beef hou fun, a fish dish, and a chili chicken dish. I would come back.

Every time I came to visit one of my best friends while he was in school here, we’d make a trip (or two) out to ECR for their amazing General Tso’s Tofu. No other Chinese place I’ve ever been to has made this dish as great as ECR. The portion is always huge and I bring home leftovers. It’s also inexpensive, well-​lit, and the people who work here are incredibly sweet. They also offer free hot tea and water during your meal. We always found a place to sit, whether it was just the two of us or with a larger group of people. I really wish I had this place nearby, I miss it. Yummmmm.

Best crab rangoon EVER.
I made SURE to stop at Empire while in CU because I was dreaming about their crab rangoons. $ 3 gets you 6. Complete steal.
Empire also finally takes cc’s, but there’s lame $ 8 min.

My previous experiences at Empire have been pretty good. This time I ordered their recommendation of ‘curry chicken’ and I was not a fan. It’s still a good amount of food for the money. Like most chinese fast food places– if you’re dining in you get free refills on your rice. There’s free Tea (I have to put ice in it cause it’s usually burning)
One recommendation I would have is that you do not try Indian food at a Chinese Restaurant. Even Cravings (on Wright) which is usually pretty good is pretty terrible with their version of Indian food.

Now that’s what I call mediocre!
I’m not a snob when it comes to Chinese food at all. I’ve experienced both unnecessarily authentic Chinese cuisine and hyper-​Americanized Chinese food and I will go for something in-​between every time.
So this place seems like it will fit right in with that, but it doesn’t. The service blows, they have a $ 7 minimum charge for credit/​debit cards — when I told them that was not allowed withiin their contracts with the credit card companies they gave me a blank stare, I walked out.
The couple of times I have eaten here I was not even mildly enthused about anything — the fried rice has no soy sauce flavor, or any particular flavor at all, it reminds me of those microwaveable rice cups. The meat was chewy and decently flavored but the portion was pretty small– not worth the price.
Don’t worry, there’s about 15,000 Asian restaurants on Green St — I’m sure that you’ll find something…