Golden Taste Restaurant

The food was good, I’m not gonna lie. But the staff here pisses me off. I think I’ve been in here, maybe twice, the least? So let me tell you a little story, the first time I was here, which was like Christmas 2004, I was in the basement in the karaōke room with a few people and since they only have one karaōke room, it was limited. So we rented the room until midnight. I don’t think we were even there for 2 hours (when it was 10 pm) when a group of other people came and they wanted the room. So the staff came and told us that other people wanted the room… Basically, they were trying to shoo us away so they can have more business.
So the 2^nd time… which was April (?)-May (?)-June (?) 2007, I was with 2 people who were visiting my mom and I all the way from Seattle and when we were there, there was not a lot of people. So we were there eating, and there came more and more people, waiting for seats. We were almost done with our food and the staff just comes and ask us if we’re finished and just takes our dishes of food, when there was plenty of left. Again, they were trying to push us away so they can have more business.
I don’t think I’ll ever come back to this place again because of the staff members. The food is good, but NOT THAT GOOD so I don’t know what the fuck they’re rushing us for.

I love this little cozy restaurant in ctown. For my friends birthday we had dinner there and the experience was great. The food is very authenic chinese cooking and the servers were kind and nice. I would love to have most of my occassions there. Its great for all occasions for all ages.

For my last few birthdays, I would invite friends to go to Kam Chueh celebrating Cantonese feast. But as it was closed down earlier this year, we moved to this spot next door for this year’s celebration.
We had 10 people, which was awesome because we really could order a whole array of food. Take this for you as a reference for ordering, because not only everyone enjoyed the range of food we had, but the manger also complimented my good ordering skill!
1. Ginger and scallion double lobsters
2. Sautéed clams with black bean sauce
3. Golden Taste’s special cold chicken (with the head)
4. Chinese broccoli with garlic sauce
5. Chinese watercress with fermented tofu sauce
6. Fried tofu with salt and pepper
7. Prawns with walnuts (on a bed of mayo-​laiden honeydew)
8. Jelly fish on a bed of Chinese ham slices
9. Eggplant with garlic sauce
10. Steak with black pepper sauce on a sizzling plate
I was disappointed to see Kam Cheuh go, but at the same time, I was happy with this new-​found place next door. In fact, happier: Golden Taste is so much cleaner, and everyone is so much friendlier.
As we ordered a lot of food, we were offered a daily soup for everyone, a typical gesture for a Cantonese restaurant; it was a porky watercress soup, it has a very intense flavor as it was probably simmered all day long (as it should be). We were also offered sweet soup (tong sui) at the end of the meal, another standard gesture, in addition to the Chinatown-​style orange wedges. The red bean tong sui really hit the spot — it brought me home right away. Do remember to ask if you go.
Nonetheless, I was disappointed with the eggplant and the walnut prawns. They were made American-​Chinese style: the eggplant was fried with a thick blanket of dough and its sauce was too sweet. The mayo-​laiden honeydew that came with the prawns was just too weird.

Today we met up with some friends to celebrate Jenn’s birthday. Parking was a bit of a chore even for a Wednesday evening but we ended up at a chinese place called Golden Taste near Canal and Bowery in between Duane Reade and the entrance to a small covered parking garage.
We were running a bit late so the ordering was already done. There were so many dishes and they kept coming out one after another like a true Chinese banquet should be masterminded.
We started off with some chicken soup which was okay but let’s just say it wouldn’t make it on my list next go around.
Then the feast began: roast chicken with ginger/​scallion oil sauce, twin lobsters stir fried in garlic, ginger, and scallion Cantonese style, whole fried flounder, baby bok choy, asian short ribs with onions, fried fantail shrimp with walnuts and mayonnaise over a waldorf fruit salad, snow peapods with stir fried chinese vegetables and conch, and last but not least clams with black bean sauce. I mean I would expect someone to be getting married to eat like this on a normal Wednesday evening, but it was Jenn’s birthday and she deserved it just as much.
As any or every chinese meal ends, they brought out some fresh cold oranges cut up into pieces. We contemplated dessert but decided against for fear we would not have the cycles or energy to make it back to the car after potentially passing out from food coma.
The company was good, the food was great, and the price? You can’t beat a banquet like that priced at around shy of $ 30 per head including tax and tip. I mean seriously folks.
Golden Taste isn’t the cleanest of places, but in their defense, it’s Chinatown for goodness sake, and it was raining today as well. In case you didn’t know, in Chinatown, sometimes the nastiest places often have the best food — just don’t stick around too long and you’ll be just fine.
The last reviewer ‘Tom M’ seemed to have a bad experience — but it looks like he orderd items from the menu that aren’t really considered chinese cuisine. Take a peek at what the chinese patrons are eating or try something from what we ordered today and I can promise, you won’t be disappointed. And don’t order the same thing from a table if they are all taking pictures of their food or if you hear them asking the wait staff for forks and knives and/​or sugar for their hot tea.

This place has surpassed Congee Village as our family’s go-​to dinner spot. Whenever we have a big group dinner celebration, we come here now.
We’ve had chilled, whole dungeness crab which is great and a staple in our rotation, but once we went a different route. We ordered the butter and cheese dungeness crab. Can’t exactly tell you what’s so buttery or cheesey about it though. It was dungeness crab dipped in a batter and fried to golden perfection. Quite tasty!
The house special chicken is a boiled chicken. We just tried that recently and it was yummy. Came with it’s usual accompaniment of a ginger-​scallion oil. Loved it!
Ordered the stir-​fried flounder with fried flounder bones. A relative bargain for the size of the fish. We even had leftovers! If I had even room in the belly, i would’ve finished the plate.
My cousin ordered the fried duck’s tongue. Not bad. Not too greasy. Nicely seasoned.
The owner is an extremely accomodating and friendly guy. This place probably has the friendliest service that you’ll ever get in a Chinatown restaurant.
The restaurant is always perpetually packed and I can see why. The delicious food combined with the friendly service makes this one of my top picks for some yummy Chinese. The next time we’re out for another Chinese meal, you’ll definitely see me back here again!

My tea tasted like it was from the ocean. Kinda like dirty salty sea water.
Ordered duck tongue to be adventurous. It was okay, but way too soaked in their «special soy sauce». I couldn’t really taste much outside of that sauce.
Sweet and sour pork was way too soaked in their cornstarch-​and-​sugar sauce.
General Tso’s chicken had teeny bits of chicken, and large solid blocks of… styrofoam? I really couldn’t tell what was up with the blocks, but they were definitely tasteless and «filler» material, as my brother put it.
When service sucks, I like my tip to reflect that — at the end they «corrected» me, by mentioning that the tip must be 15% and above. At that point, I almost took a dollar back. But I just left instead.
My brother started to feel really shitty after we left, and we’re not 100% its because their food sucked… but we are 100% sure of the fact that their food did actually suck.
To be fair, the food on the people’s table next to us looked like «real food», but I’m not going back to waste another 40 bucks on what might again be a worthless dinner.

2007.05.04 Dinner. Duck Touges $ 10. Soup complementary is very good. Waiter is nice. He gave us two servings of Soup.

This place makes great homestyle Cantonese food that’s best for big groups. Garlic stir-​fried veggies? Delicious! Crispy skin chicken? Awesome! Shrimp stuffed tofu cubes? Yummy! Peking style pork chops? Heavenly!
Doh! I’m hungry now!