Twin Lakes Chinese Restaurant II

I came here with a craving for a low priced Chinese buffet. Sometimes you just gotta give in to those desires. The selections of foods was low range compared to other buffets, but most of the food was freshly cooked and hadn’t been sitting too long. That’s important for crispy fried chicken chunks swimming in your favorite Asian sauces. It was good but not exceptional. The hostess made sure there was enough of each item. Buffet station was clean and well organized. It was nice to sit at the booth by the window and know I could always go back for more if I didn’t put enough on my plate the first or second time.

I simply ordered 2 egg rolls. As soon as we walked in we were able to order. It was empty. It’s an old looking restaurant, not much to be expected of a Chinese American place. It was however clean, I’m just getting takeout and they have chairs to sit in while you wait for your food which is nice. It definitely took a while for the food to come out, so u should order ahead of time. When I skimmed the bar, they had fresh fruit, multiple soup options, lo mein, fried rice, string beans, crab ragoon, and the other basics. While waiting for my food, I witnessed a worker pack up some egg drop soup from the buffet for someone’s order. Do with that information, what you wish. The egg rolls weren’t very tasty which is odd considering they’re pretty easy to make.

First of all, I was a loyal customer for a long time. I ordered delivery many times, despite the times they screwed up my food and then hung up on me when I complained. After that incident, I stopped ordering.
I originally posted this to Unilocal when this place wasn’t listed here. So here is my review from last year. True to my word, I have not returned:
I am officially never ordering from or coming here again. I used to because it was the best food I’d had in the area, but now… Just no. I gave this place one last chance because a friend suggested it and I did not want to be rude and say no.
So, about 3 weeks ago a friend and I went in for dinner. I had never been there before since I order delivery, but I was a little taken aback when we walked in. It was not only a ghost town, but barely looked like a restaurant. It looked like a deserted pool hall. The tables were haphazard, there were no menus or silverware until we asked for them… Just not a pleasant place to want to eat.
Then, the waitress tells us she is just filling in and she had no clue about the menu. We saw «Double Happiness» under the Vegetarian section and asked what it was. She told us it was a bunch of different meats… I asked if they had wine, she said yes. Then she never brought it, and said «oh no, oops we dont.» So I asked for a mai tai. She looked me in the eyes and said «Um, is that a beer?»
I said no, just bring me vodka with some juice in it, preferably cranberry. You cant really go too wrong there. Well, I was wrong. She brought us both margarita glasses full of pink sludge. It was literally daquiri mix with almost no vodka in it. We choked them back, and asked for our bill because we knew arguing about getting something different would be disaster (esp given past reviews I have left about how reluctant they are to admit they are wrong). $ 60. For two people to have an entrée and soup, we were APPALLED. The drinks were more than 30% of our bill, and cost more than the entrees! They actually charged us almost $ 14 per CRAPPY DRINK! We were outraged and argued for a while, since it was a gross and unjustified charge. She puts her fingers up to indicate about a shot’s size and says thats how much vodka they used. Needless to say, we left furious.
I will never go here again, and never order from them. For real this time, I am disgusted. RIDICULOUS.
*Since this review I have not been back so I cannot attest for their interior look now. But I am willing to bet it hasnt changed.

Now infused with salvadorian. fried rice is lackluster, egg rolls terrible, and lo mein greasy. very sad, i loved this place. on to find a new go to.

I wish I could do a half a star!!!
I am new to Unilocal.I read the reviews of this place before I ordered and although most of the people were not very favorable towards it, in comparison to other places in Manassas I decided to try it. My stomach is NOT thanking me right now. The food was terrible! It had no flavor. I ordered Spring Rolls, Shrimp Fried Rice and Beef with Snow Peas. How do you mess that up. I have been cooking all of those since I was 10! and I am American — better than they did! SAVE YOUR MONEY!

Hands down the best Chinese food in Manassas, not quite as good as Empire in Woodbridge, but pretty close!

I have ordered delivery from here a lot. They always deliver it very fast and it is always still hot. The proportions are very large and I almost always get two meals out of it. However, the food was way better before they added their tex-​mex menu. I ordered twice after they changed and I def won’t be going back.

This time I tried the Salvadoran & Tex Mex delights. I am floored. The Tamales are wrapped in banana leaves and stay piping hot for HOURS. I’m hooked on these (I called for more the very next day). The steak fajitas, avocado salad, and fried plantains with scrambled eggs… all were very clean and hearty proportions. No thin sliced nothing! There are chunks of meats, an entire avocado used in the salad, lightly fried plantains, the rice… Basically, these cooks do not skimp. If you want authentic Latin American food that is healthy and savory, bring yourself here. There isn’t a lot of sauce to cover the taste of the plate. You’ll love it.
Either menu is a wonderful variety.

We used to go here all the time, loved it but with new management the food has gone down and you may need to wait on items in the buffet to be refilled. We are looking for a new go-​to Chinese restaurant.

Delight times 3 = 4 stars
That’s shrimp, beef and pork
Got it ‘to go’ and the fried rice @ no xtra charge… gotta like that!
When they say 10 minutes, they really mean 9.
I order take out here regularly since it’s close to my house.
Always good quality, great service and a fair price; $ 14.12 for the large portion.
But now… there’s more… they also serve Tex Mex & Salvadoran.
I think they have changed the name to Twin Lakes II.

This is probably the best Chinese I’ve had in Manassas. But that isn’t really a compliment. The food arrived quick, fresh, and hot. But the taste ehhhhhh so so. Something about it didn’t taste quite right. The sauce on the sesame chicken tasted like it came from a bottle. You’re still better off going to Panda Express if you want Chinese in Manassas

We ordered here for the first time a few weeks ago and decided to get it delivered. Delivery was fast and the lady who delivered was very polite. Unfortunately though, when it came to their quality of food… we were very disappointed. Here are our reviews regarding their dishes:
CRAB RANGOON
The crust was okay. Since it was delivered, it was a bit stale so I’m not sure if the quality would’ve been better in the restaurant. In regards to flavor, you could definitely taste the crab but the cream cheese was overwhelmingly thick. Imagine yourself chewing on a stale, thick crab rangoon… it was a total disappointment.
WONTON SOUP
The wonton noodle was very thick and honestly, I’ve never tasted anything like this. The soup was watered down and the flavor wasn’t satisfying. I was at least hoping for the meat to have some taste but that too was unfortunately bland.
PAN-​FRIED NOODLES
I’m still on a hunt for Hong Kong Style (Cantonese) Pan-​Fried Noodles and unfortunately this is not the place to go for it. Their dish comes with egg (chowmein) noodles deep fried and served with their sauce. The sauce was very thick. Vegetables were okay. The broccoli tasted a bit bitter so I wasn’t sure if it was just my taste buds or it may have tasted old.
STEAMED RICE
Knowing that this is a Chinese Restaurant, you would think they could not ruin rice. But boy that day it was horrible! They may have had a new cook but the rice was undercooked and it tasted very dry. It just ruined the whole meal for me!
GENERAL TSO CHICKEN
This was probably the best dish we had. I can’t say too much about it since nothing was great about it. It was definitely a little more satisfying than the other dishes. They did however put way too much sauce so for some people this may be good or a bad thing. Personally, I’d prefer general tso to be crunchy and have much less sauce.
Overall, if I wanted to have some decent chinese food… I’d rather drive up to Centreville and order from Sino’s Inn. If not… Panda Express would be my second choice.

We decided to order some chinese food for lunch, they had dropped off a menu at my doorstep and I figured it would be worth a shot. We ordered the Pu Pu Tray. The tray wasn’t very appetizing and the meat was very bland, the shrimp balls were the worst that I have eaten. We also ordered Sesame Chicken, and General Tso’s Chicken. The Sesame chicken had way too much sauce and hardly any sesame seeds, the chicken wasn’t tender or juicy it was rubbery and dry under all that sauce. The General Tso was probably some of the worst that I have had. On top of that the food was expensive to boot. I have no problem paying a premium if it is good. I don’t recommend this place at all.

Never fails to deliver great tasting Chinese food. My family has been ordering from here for years. For a while they even knew us on the phone by our order. :-/