China One

Food was very generic. Didn’t really pop in flavor. Fried rice was bland and the general Tso’s chicken tastes like McDonald’s chicken nuggets with sauce poured on them. Eat at your own risk I won’t be back.

Really wanted to like this place since York county seems to be a Chinese food wasteland. Sadly, the lo mein had a funny taste to it, as did the egg roll (lots of pepper… Black pepper) and the crab reasons were so odd too. They seemed to have red pepper chunks in them?
At any rate, we won’t be returning.

Very, very good! We had chicken and broccoli, gen tso’s and house fried rice (chicken and shrimp w/​o pork).

Based on another person’s review, i tried the hot and sour soup, and the Singapore Chow Mai Fun. The soup was delish. The Chow Fun was good but had too much curry for my taste. Next time I will try something new but definitely will be back.

The fried rice is AWFUL!!! But the shrimp toast is always great and I also like their egg foo young too. I live in Mount Wolf, so my close options are limited but I just stick to what I know I like from them and have not tried nearly everything as I do not want to be disappointed.

Horrible place. Workers are very disrespectful and do not know how to deal with customers. Do not go unless you want to be disrespected

Some of the worst food… EVER. I ordered chicken fried rice and it was utterly tasteless. I’ve also never seen bright yellow fried rice. The only thing in it was chicken and onion. The egg roll was ok. Won’t be going back, which us too bad since it’s so close.

**Take-​Out** This was our 1^st time trying China One… and it’s our last. My husband & I were very dissapointed. We’ve ate food at various Chinese restaurants typical of C1 and this was the worst food we’ve had. My husband ordered the General Tso Chicken, which is his favorite. They use «yellow» rice instead of actually frying white rice, the sauce is a generic red glaze that’s strong & cheap in taste. After a couple of bites, he put it aside. I ordered one Shrimp Egg Roll & Szechuan Wonton Soup (comes in quart only). The egg roll. the size was small compared to other places, lettuce was very brown & limp like the rolls were made 3 – 4 days before & it only contained 2 pieces of shrimp. The worse shrimp egg roll I’ve ever had up to this point.
Now to the soup. I’m thinking the broth for the soup would have the consistency of most Chinese soups, a watery broth with some green onions & veggies. I even asked how the soup is made when I placed the order, since I don’t eat egg & I did’nt want that surprise. I was told it just contained wontons & broth. The broth is a thick glaze, like authentic General Tso sauce, brown/​reddish-​brown with pepper flake or seeds and semi-​sweet. The quart container is full of it. The actual wontons, is 95% dough 5% meat & they’re huge globs of dough. Basically, I just scooped out the wontons & ate a few of them. I could’nt finish the so-​called «soup», it was just nasty.
We usually eat from Peking across the street, but just wanted to try C1. We will stick with Peking. They actually fry the rice & they make the BEST shrimp egg rolls I’ve ever had.

I often get the General Tsos tofu here, one of the few Asian restaurants to offer it. Quick service, good food and convenient– right near a grocery store so I order before shopping.

Update! After ordering 34.54 in food and taking it home, when I opened my order the chicken wing were full of feathers not lil peach fur but lots of feathers. When I called them to complain all he said was no one complains. These wings were actually flowered with the feathers makes you wonder are the washing them? Obviously not!

In a small PA town that really is hurting for dining out options I’ve been meandering my way through it for a couple years now. We decided to try China One mostly on
recommendations. But all the while I thought with my experience I knew what I was getting into here. The typical hole-​in-​the-​wall generic Chinese joint geared for American palates with yummy ‘specialties’ like General Tso’s chicken, greasy egg rolls, Sweet Sour Pork, and ‘whatever’ fried rice.
Well for the most part China One IS this kind of place — they have those items — but the menu goes deeper than that. I’m looking forward to trying this place again and really going yard on the menu but for this trip I kept it to some common benchmark items; hot n sour soup and Singapore Style Rice noodle (or chow fun depending on where you are in China).
The place itself IS one of those typical hole-​in-​the-​wall joints — pictorial menus on the wall over the counter, menus that double as placemats should you dine in at the 10 or so booth style tables they offer, and order at the counter first style service. All the usual condiments are in packets save for the bottle of soy on the tables. The place was clean but on a Sat night there was only one other couple dining in. There was a steady stream of carry out customers while we were dining however and the phone never stopped ringing. I did listen intently to what folks were ordering — nothing interesting at all hehe — but I was expecting that. I typically check the restrooms in a review — I forgot to this time. I’ll update this one later with that and a review on deeper menu items next visit.
On to the food — I’ve had hot n sour soup all over this nation — from some of the top Cantonese restaurants in Chinatowns everywhere to some of the most horrific excuses for dining experiences you can possibly imagine. I can honestly say China One had one of the best if not THE best I’ve ever had. The broth was deeply flavorful and just the right thickness — it was loaded with egg, woodear and button mushrooms, tiny batons of beef and pork, scallions, and tofu. The small size was huge — I cannot imagine how much the large would have been. The balance of hot and sour was perfect — and it was hot — I like mine to have a good kick — it did. The Singapore Style Rice Noodle was also a very ample portion for the small size. When done poorly this dish is usually bland and greasy. When done right it perfumes you with curry and ample bits of chicken, pork, beef, onions, scallions, and shrimp. Every bit of this fabulous noodle dish was done to perfection — the veg was crisp but had a nice char on it from clearly a nuclear hot wok, the shrimp plump and not rubbery/​overcooked, the chicken and beef tender and cut across the grain and the noodle just perfectly al-​dente. This is one of my favorite dishes from a not-​fully authentic Chinese menu — and this too was one of the better I’ve had anywhere.
To be fair — I did order an appetizer which was called «Crab Claw». I didn’t ask what it was I just ordered it (I do this a lot in ethnic food joints) — I’ve had fried crab claws before in Alabama and points South and I figured that’s what it was; breaded and fried cracked crab claws. Unfortunately this item was a slam dunk failure and kept China One from having any chance of more than 3 stars (it doesn’t really anyway lol). They were fried crab claws alright — but they were just basically big hunks of dough wrapped around uncracked crab claws (baby ones at that). This was pretty awful — didn’t even come with a sauce of any sort. At least it was only $ 3.95 — to charge more for this would be criminal. I ate one and looked for a dog to give the rest to — no luck there though so it went in with the leftover chicken nuggets (story on that coming up).
My wife got the chicken noodle soup — which I tried and was actually very good (the stock at least was rich) — but I’m not bothering to actually review that — or the chicken nuggets and fries my step-​granddaughter ordered (other than to say the wife said THEY were some of the best nuggets she’d ever had and were «WAY better than McDonalds»). Since I refuse to eat the ‘food’ at Ronald’s place I can’t say this is worth comparing either.
I took time to compliment the chefs on the way out on the Hot N Sour soup — and the one fellow (all actual Chinese folks mind you) actually said in Chinese (gleaned from the hostess interpreting) «You bet it is!». I like that kind of gravitas and pride in one’s work — especially in a place with low profit margins like this.
We will be back to China One someday — but that’s another story — this review will be updated then. Until then — if you are in the Manchester PA area — and actually care more about the quality of the food you stuff your gut with over the QUANTITY of it — THIS is a SOLID place to go for your Chinese fix.
Not REMOTELY humbly submitted this day,
Tim M. (D. Food Snob, Ph.D.)

Good food fast. Much better than that other place up the street. Carry out /​fast food ambiance. Good place for lunch or carryout.

A first time eating in at China one was lackluster for me.
The place was empty and I was there slightly after normal dinner. The food was served hot, but the ‘crab’ in the crab and shrimp w/​garlic sauce didn’t taste like imitation crab, more like some kind of bean paste-​gummy and it was just colored white and red. I found the sauce to be ok, but I needed to add seasoning to the rice — it was supposed to be fried rice but it just tasted like white rice with some color, onion and pork bits thrown in. I would probably stop in for the sake of convenience, but the food is not the best — it just lacks in the basic taste dept. I was somewhat okay with the shrimp until I noticed one of them was not cleaned and another was done halfway — not appetizing.