China Cafe

This place is quick and easy for a lunch or dinner stop. Food is always delicious and place is clean.

Our regular Chinese restaurant. Pretty good food. Big menu. Speak fairly good english. Nice diet menu.

Great chinese restaurant for all the essentials. Great dumlings, very good egg rolls/​spring rolls. The chicken lo mein and garlic with beef dishes were decent. Exceptionally good won-​ton soup! WIll definitely be back!

It’s too bad the lunch menu here is limited to American-​Chinese food, because China Café’s authentic Szechuan is the best food in Manlius and would be an even better lunch option if the menu were broader. The spicy sliced fish is my favorite — lightly battered and fried boneless hunks of white fish mixed with green peppers, garlic, and ma la peppercorns. Nice citrus/​spice combination.
Kung po and the double-​cooked Szechuan pork are good, too. American stuff, whatever. Not the best, not the worst.
This isn’t destination food (downtown and the boulevard have better places, Tang Flavor best among them), but China Café’s excellent if you’re out in Manlius.

Very good food, and the staff was nice… BUT service is very slow if you dine in during dinner time, as they manage a huge take-​out volume, which seemed to get priority on the night we were there– Thus the deduction of 1 star. The honey walnut shrimp was very good– my favorite! I wouldn’t hesitate ordering takout from here at all, though– definitely good food at a decent price.

CHINA CAFE! The options here are endless. Chicken, beef, fish, duck, shrimp, soup, and lots of szechuan cuisine. I recommend their beef noodle soup — the soup broth is pretty accurate to what I’m used to in Taiwan, and the beef is oh-​so-​tender. It’s beef you can actually bite into, and not gnaw at until sore jaws. The pasta is cooked well — a little on the mushy side but not too bad. They probably have the best beef noodle soup in Syracuse. Also, their (crispy honey) walnut shrimp is AMAZING. I seriously recommend anyone to try this. The walnut is so satisfying to eat with the shrimp, and the mayonnaise may seem a little weird to some who have never tried this Chinese dish, but trust me, it’s the perfect condiment. Prices are fair, service is great.

Listen up guys,
I am so picky when it comes to Chinese food. And lets be real, there are hundreds of Chinese restaurants in the Syracuse area. Needless to say, I’ve eaten a lot of sub-​par Chinese dishes in my life time. HOWEVER, a meal at China Café is not one that you will forget. If you are looking for authentic and affordable Chinese food… you have to come here. I’m not just talking about typical american Chinese food (although their sesame/​sweet and sour chicken is BOMB), I’m talking about the real deal, traditional dishes here. After eating at China Café, every other restaurant will just be «blah» and you will probably refuse to order from any where else. Unless you are actually in China. Then maybe it wouldn’t be worth it to order all the way from Manlius, New York.
This place is so legit that my friend straight from Hong Kong even approves of it being absolutely delicious. I have probably eaten close to everything on the menu, but upon my most recent visit I had the beef stew casserole. Don’t let the word casserole fool you. It was basically a beef stew with vegetables. AND BOY WAS IT GOOD. The beef was so tender it low key melted in my mouth. All of their ingredients are 100% fresh and its obvious. The service is always phenomenal and the family run business has been goin since 2005.
So if you are a fan of hole in the wall restaurants that are dishing out fresh and authentic classics, China café will definitely be your go-​to when you are feeling its going to be a Chinese take out night.

First time eating, ordering takeout, loved it, just yummy.
Most of the time I’ve ever had Chinese food, I’d feel very sluggish/​tired but these guys obviously are cooking different (i.e. fresh).

Our first attempt at eating their food was not a great experience. General Tso chicken was flavorless, wonton soup was also flavorless and the wontons were mush. Our next experience was not much better. We waited over an hour for our food. Was supposed to be a 45 minute wait, which is crazy! I went there and had to wait another 20 minutes. She never apologized for letting me sit there like a fool.
This time around, husband had boneless spare ribs, which he said was not good. I had chicken lo mein, which was also not good. We will not be going back.
Chinese food is NOT worth this much of a hassle.

STOP. If you’re looking for authentic Chinese restaurants, cancel your other candidates and go here now. This is a family owned restaurant that knows not only how to prepare good quality food, but accurate and authentic to the cuisines they are inspired from. Let’s begin.
We started with «wu xiang niu,» or literally translated to five-​spice beef, but more accurately called Sichuan braised beef slices. This is considered an appetizer. Let me forewarn you that this is a chilled dish, and it is intended to be that way. Sichuan by nature is dense with spicy food in an already hot country, so this balance is necessary. This is one of the most delicious appetizers from Sichuan. It’s packed with flavor, but with none of the chilli heat or tingling Sichuan pepper. The beef is cooked until tender in a master stock. You must understand how great this dish is. Cold tender beef slices that’s seasoned to perfection? That makes little sense; but when you try it, it will make perfect sense. ¹⁰⁄₁₀
Get the walnut shrimp. I must admit at first I was underwhelmed by the small size of the shrimp, but it is as they say — size does not matter. The dish was adequately creamy, and the walnuts were candied (a commonly missed necessity). Another common downfall is the shrimp that is not adequately deep-​fried such that it is too tender on the chew. Savory, sweet, creamy. Oh my gosh, get this dish. ⁹⁄₁₀
We also got the fish fillet in hot chili oil or «shui zhu yu.» This is one of the main staples of Sichuan cuisine (also note in my other review I touted «la zi ji» as a staple as well). This dish was cooked fantastically. The oil was thin, but still had substance. It was not literally oil, but resembled an oily spicy broth that would be totally acceptable to sip (another downfall of those who don’t know how to prepare «shui zhu» dishes). The fish was tender and soaked up the spices in the broth. Overall a savory spicy dish that pairs great with the rice in your bowl. Put the fish on top and you’ll have perfectly seasoned rice that takes up the aroma of the chili oil. Mmm. ⁹⁄₁₀

Being weened on Chinese food as a kid my usual go to items are Hot and Sour Soup and Pork Fried Dumplings. Well tonight I mixed it up a little. I went to China Café to see what it was like and ordered from there as the menu is very limited online. I found China Café to be very clean and very bright, it’s ok I was doing take out anyway. I ordered the Pork Fried Dumplings and the Spicy Wontons. I asked if both sides of the dumpling can be seared (pan fried) at first I was told no! I said why can’t you flip the dumpling over to brown the other side. After asking very nicely the woman who I will call, «Happy» folded like a card table, it’s wasn’t like I asked to re build The Great Wall. I did ask if MSG was used the answer was a very quick «No» the «No» was too suspicious but I was in no mood to go head to head with, «Happy».
I did ask the young girl who took my credit card if she (Happy) ever smiled? The girl chuckled. My food cam package up as requested. I asked if they do true Szechwan or mostly Cantonese. The girl gave me a menu and pointed out the Szechwan items.
I will return back in the short term to try other items and will critique accordingly.

Bland, flavorless. Got chicken with broccoli extra spicy. They also don’t give you anywhere enough rice. I have yet to find decent Chinese food in CNY

Great place. Good menu will all the traditional favorites.
Easy to understand and Responsive order takers on the phone. She allows me to add/​take away items and my food always is cooked as I wanted it to be.
My favorite is the General Tso’s chicken

Located in a strip mall in Manlius, China Café looks like a hole in the wall, but looks can be deceiving.
China Café serves very delicious takeout and sit in Chinese food. The price is very reasonable and affordable for most.
I always order their steamed pork dumplings every time I order out. They make really good fish and noodle dishes as well.

Really nice staff, cute little strip mall Chinese place. Food wise my date (aka esppsita) asked how I would rate it 1 – 10. I felt good about a 5 because it wasn’t too salty or greasy but it also wasn’t too flavorful or authentic. For Manlius it might be an 8 or 9 but for me, a 5 is as high as I am willing to go.

China Café is our go– to place for Chinese food. My husband and I order one main dish (Sesame Chicken, Orange Chicken, etc) and a large veggie lo mein every time and it feeds us for two meals. Prices are low but food is excellent.
The only time I had a problem was when they said the order would be done in 30 minutes but it took over an hour. There were many people waiting in the little restaurant with me a bit impatient because the estimated time was so wrong. But the food was worth it, and I don’t want that one time to overshadow the food and value.

This Chinese American place in a manlius strip mall has all of the classics on their extensive menu.
It’s consistently good; only occasionally jumping to great.
They have a very hopping take out business and the only time they messed up my order was to give me extra crab Rangoon that I never asked for… So I grab some extra hot mustard and took care of the problem. I put more money in their tip jar the next time I picked up food, to compensate.

The food is good and cheap. The portion is more than enough for one person.
Its seating area is not very good. But it is perfect for to-​go.

8÷17÷2015; i have to update my review. My previous review is still valid. it’s very close to my house so we get food from them very often. tonight i found a cockroach in my food which killed my appetite and my faith to this restaurant, so i changed my stars from 4 to 1.
12/​22/​2014; The food is really good, it was very hard to order the food over the phone, but recently it’s much better. price compare to food portion and quality is very decent. Tri-​flavor chicken and fried dry beans are my favorites. the atmosphere is not good, but for a take out it’s awesome.

My favorite new take-​out place back home!
It’s not really an eat-​in spot, there is very little seating and the décor is pretty nonexistent. But for a spot in a small strip mall down 173, I was impressed by the food and timeliness of having my order ready.
I had sesame chicken and pork gyoza, both were very tasty. My parents weren’t overly impressed with their orders, General Tzo’s and Orange Beef, I believe. But that didn’t stop them from nomming on my dish! Pretty sure my brother ate half my gyoza. Not cool. All-​in-​all, a solid take-​out spot with fast service for the Fayetteville-​Manlius area.