House of China

PLEASE READ, IT’S WORTH IT!# Oh where do I start??? This is the first and only time I will order from this joke of an establishment. First — made a pick up order on the phone with an older gentleman. Within one minute he got exasperated and passed me on to a better English speaking co-​worker. I was 3^rd in line when I arrived, in enough time to see him get loud with a customer… you know, because if you yell loudly enough she must then understand his broken English. He was abrupt, slammed receipts and menus down, no greeting, all while his co-​worker frantically tried to «interpret» alongside him. I felt so bad for the customers he was embarrassing and for that poor worker. Anyways, got home and found that one of my orders was wrong. No biggie except I live 15 mins away in the boonies. Now trust me when I say that I get older, ornery Asian men — I’m Chinese myself and have grown up in a loud Hawaiian/​Asian household (yelling is the norm… it’s when it’s quiet that you know someone done messed up!). So I knew the best way to handle it was to be calm and respectful. That went out the window in seconds. As soon as I stated one of my orders was wrong, he cut me off and said he took the order and he didn’t hear me say cashew chicken. Ok… we hadn’t established who I was yet. Then when he did, he said he didn’t take the order and didn’t know who did. So I explain to him and he gets more upset and tells me to just bring it back. Not going to happen, I’m a single mom with a sick kid at home and not driving back. Then he says ok well that’s it. Basically I demanded a credit, and then asked him for his name. Mother of all blow ups occur. I try to explain it’s just in case when I go in that I can refer back to him if need be. Needless to say I lost my sh**, and have no remorse. There’s a line between being respectful and being walked on. That man is an ass, and that just sucks for the establishment because it looked decent. Food was alright — not worth the drama though. Trying to figure out how I can get my Granny to move from Hawaii to San Antonio to open up a shop to shut his down…

Food was very bland and not fresh. Service was not very helpful or friendly. I prefer Pei Wei for the same price.

I had dinner with my husband. Everything was going great until it was time to leave. My husband went to the bathroom and as I was waiting for him I could see partial view of the kitchen. A man wearing a light blue shirt put his fingers to his mouth and then proceeded to grab food with those same fingers (no gloves) and throw on the cooking area. At this point I was disgusted. I told my husband in the car. He then tells me he saw that same man eating in the back. This is the same guy that is touching people’s food. This is not sanitary and can get people sick with cross contamination. Needless to say our food we got to go ended in the trash as soon as we got home.

Got delivery from here because me and my friend were at a tournament in the area. We ordered at 1:32 and they said that it would be at my location in 45 minutes, 2:15 which was no big deal. They said 5 minutes later that it was going to be ready in 1 hour, 2:30 which was fine still. Me and my friend went outside at 2:25 expecting that it would be at the location in 5 – 7 minutes. It wasn’t. We were in heels and pencil skirts, I might add because it was the tournament attire. We waited outside for another 10 minutes, 2:40 before calling back and asking what was the hold up. The person on the line said that they had just sent out a message saying that the food would be there in 10 minutes and that was 3 minutes ago, so 7 more minutes. At that point we decided that we were tired and our feet were killing us from standing for so long (our location didn’t have benches outside) so we went to wait inside and sit down on the benches by the door. 10 minutes passed (our food was supposed to be there 3 minutes ago) which was 3:00 when my friend said that she had to go home because she had to go somewhere. So it wasn’t until 3:04 when the food pulled up. I told the driver that I would only pay for myself because my friend got tired of waiting for an hour and a half and left. So I only payed for my food and the driver took my friends food back to the restaurant. When my friend and I had told our peers that we had ordered Chinese food, everybody had said that we were smart for doing that… no it was not smart. It’s not even good Chinese food, if you want good Chinese food then go to Oolong Chinese Bistro.

The delivery guy was great, on time, and very courteous. The food however wasn’t very good. The fried rice was over cooked and bland. My wife and daughter had sweet and sour chicken. They said yhe chicken had decent flavor but nothing to brag about. My son and I had the sesame chicken and I was not impressed. My chicken wss rubbery and dry with sauce on it that was decent. My son said his chicken was ok. We spent $ 42 and I wasn’t blown away. I won’t be ordering again any time soon. The food looked a lot better than it tasted.

In short, House of China is a nice, straightforward American Chinese restaurant. No dish is particularly memorable; however, food taste and quality is nowhere near as terrible as some seemingly «lemon» reviews swear by. (I mean, are you really going to trust a review based entirely on the most Americanized Chinese dish of all, Lemon Chicken? Written by someone who’s only other review is about a random gas station on some city’s outskirts? Come on.)
Last visit, our group ordered Hunan Beef, Szechuan Chicken, and Vegetable Delight, each with fried rice, an egg roll, a cheese rangoon + Hot & Sour Soup to start. The meats were NOT rubbery like many subpar «Chinese» places try to pass off as acceptable… instead, the beef was tender and well flavored — its thin gravy-​like sauce satisfyingly rich and smoky — and the chicken notably fresh with hefty cuts glazed in an equally rounded sweet yet savory Szechuan sauce. All the vegetables — broccoli, carrot, red/​green pepper, onion, mushroom, snap pea, baby corn, bamboo shoot, water chesnut — were pleasantly crisp yet not just mixed in with the sauce last-​minute so as not to absorb any flavor. It’s worth mentioning… their Hot & Sour has a slightly sweet bite to it, a cool departure from the mundane. If you order a larger bowl as your entrée, simply add a couple lemons’ worth of juice plus a dash of soy sauce and you’ll be good to go. Uneventful rice.
Overall, we appreciate most the fact that this place doesn’t simply drench over-​breaded, flabby, unidentifiable meat in overwhelmingly heavy sauces and pretend it’s more than it really is. What you’ll find here, rather, are decently prepared and enjoyably tasty dishes that will indeed keep your stomach intact afterwards. Additional menu highlights: Sesame Chicken, Curry Shrimp, Mongolian Chicken, Orange Beef, Dragon & Phoenix Delight.
Located INSIDE 1604 (across from Alamo Ranch) next to Peter Piper Pizza, House of China’s open until 9:30 PM M-​Sun, until 10 PM on Saturday. $ 6.45 LUNCH SPECIALS END AT 3. No WiFi.

We went for lunch today. The food wasn’t horrible, soup was ok and my daughters kids meal was ok… But I literally only ordered 1 med egg drop soup, 1 small wonton soup and 1 children’s sweet/​sour chicken. We ordered waters as our beverage and the bill was over 17 $ I’m sorry but that’s a bit much for 2 soups and a kids meal… So with tip it was over 20 $… Service wasn’t great, no drink refills and it took forever to get the check and a box to go for my daughters kids meal. I wouldn’t mind going back since the food wasn’t horrible but the price was too high for what I ordered… The lunch special was less then my soup and was the same price as the kids meal.

Hardly ever give any establishment a 1 star rating but I experience we had today is not worth more than a star. We decided to eat a late lunch here after visiting friends in Alamo Ranch. This is the second time I’ve dined here. The first was nothing to brag about, but it wasn’t bad. My wife and I ordered the lunch portion of lemon chicken and hunan beef. The soup was kinda bland and our meal was a bit cold and salty. That’s not the issue we had here.
When we entered the restaurant, we were escorted and sat by the waitress, she took our drinks and our meal order. Then another waitress approached her while she was walking towards the kitchen and mumbled something to her in a mad tone. The second waitress then approached us and ask us to move tables because the initial waitress sat us in the wrong table. She took our teas and helped us move and proceeded to tell us that she would serve us now. Ok, no biggie. The food took kinda long to come out, like it was sitting there for a while. As we were eating, the two kept arguing in their native language about something. Both servers were clearly upset at each other. It got to the point where our waitress was clearly distracted and never came back to check on us. No refills, no boxes, no check. Then when we got up to go to the front to pay, the older man, maybe the owner, goes over to where they were standing and starts yelling at them. He starts throwing his hands every where and cussing, some in their language and some in English. So at this point, the only three people who worked in this place were arguing yards from us. We felt like we were caught in the drama of a soap opera. I didn’t wait any longer for the furious man to come back with our check. I put $ 20 on the counter and left. It was such an uncomfortable dining experience!

The food had no flavor at all! My fried rice had only 2 pieces of carrots and one pea? Really ?
We order sweet and sour chicken and lemon chicken. They both had the same sauce ?? Mm mm? Ok? The chicken was hard and cold !
And our bill was like 40.00 …
We def won’t be coming back !!
Save ur money and Save ur time
This place is no worth it

I’d like to start out with this: My coworkers and I have ordered from this place many many times before without incident. We always get a big kick out of calling and ordering because it’s always the Grumpy Old Man who takes our order. What can I say, he’s grumpy, but our orders have always been correct and on time.
Today, however, Grumpy Old Man infromed me I should have called to place my order earlier. This should have been a sign to hang up and call China Garden, but I soldiered on and placed my order. While our orders were mostly correct, we had a few issues:
1. Grumpy Old Man asked if I was calling from an office, to which I replied «yes». I stated I had a large order for 7 people. When the food arrived there were no utensils, sauce, or napkins.
2. No fortune cookies :(
3. General’s chicken was very general with no spice
4. There was a nice-​sized hair in the lemon chicken sauce
5. The triple delight was sparse and devoid of any delight
For the most part this place is usually on their game. Maybe Grumpy Old Man just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today?

The food here was great. The cheese ragoons were perfect the sauce was a little sweet, but not overbearing. I got the chicken lo mien and the chicken was cooked perfectly, it wasn’t over done like many places. Coming from Delaware and their lack of quAlity Chinese food places I’m highly impressed with the food and will most likely be our go to.