Home › Forums › West Seattle Food › Chopstix Restaurant
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April 12, 2013 at 5:16 am #787413
BigRedMemberOrdered this weekend. EVERYTHING WAS GREAT!!! It only to 40mins for delivery to Westwood. We loved it all! Pork fried rice, chicken chow mien , potstickers, moo shoo pork, almond chicken, wanton soup… All super yummy!
April 12, 2013 at 2:16 pm #787414
schwaggyParticipantAte there the other night. Sat in the back and was basically abandoned by the nice waitress. It’s cold back there as they were keeping the door open for kitchen ventilation. Maybe consider piping the music from the front to the back so it seems less like a prison.
Three dishes ordered took FORTY FIVE minutes to come out. Granted, the front of the place was full, but really, 45 minutes?
Oh the food. Nope – yuk. Mushy meat, noodles with disgusting sauce, overcooked veggies. Asked for 5 star, and got nothing. Maybe one pepper. Won’t be going back. Not enough there to give it a second chance.
April 12, 2013 at 3:07 pm #787415
maudeParticipantWe went last night. The potstickers were bland and a bit doughy. The meat inside didn’t appear to be seasoned at all. We had Kung Pao Chicken which the menu indicated was spicy (why we ordered it) and there wasn’t any spice to it at all. As a matter of fact, the only thing in it with flavor was the celery. We also got the Sweet and Sour Chicken. That was the best of the dishes but you know, it’s fried and has a sweet sauce. We ordered green tea from the menu and were informed that they don’t actually have green tea.
I’m puzzled why some are raving about the food and others have had the same experience that we did. We may be back to give them another shot but if it isn’t a more positive experience we won’t be back after that.
April 12, 2013 at 9:31 pm #787416
anonymeParticipantThai restaurants (which we have in abundance around here) started the “stars” ratings thing. No other Asian cuisine really offers that option, including Chinese, although there are Chinese regional dishes that are spicy (and usually noted as such on the menu). A dish is what it is, with varying levels of spice depending on tradition and the chef.
Think of it this way: would you walk into an Italian restaurant and order your Veal Piccata with 4 stars? Thailand is not China is not Japan is not Vietnam….etc., etc.
April 12, 2013 at 11:09 pm #787417
maudeParticipantThe menu said that items listed in red were spicy. Kung pao chicken was in red, suggesting spicy. Instead, devoid of any flavor.
April 12, 2013 at 11:23 pm #787418
shed22ParticipantI am glad to have a Chinese delivery option so close to home. Had Chopstix delivered the other day. The phone service was friendly and the delivery was quick. The food lived up to low expectations. I will order again, simply because I like to make awful decisions some times.
April 13, 2013 at 12:59 am #787419
schwaggyParticipantanonyme – When a Chinese restaurant has descriptions next to dishes that say they’re spicy, and further, some of these dishes are Szechuan (from that regional thing you speak of, I believe it’s from the Sichuan province) – and oh my, the wait staff asks how many freekin’ stars spicy I want, I’m going to go with stars. American Thai might have “invented” it, but it’s fairly ubiquitous now. Ever eat Indian?
Thanks for the education though.
April 13, 2013 at 1:49 am #787420
JanSParticipantschwaggy…no need to be rude…
April 13, 2013 at 2:12 am #787421
shed22ParticipantI just added 4 stars on my Zeek’s “Thai One On” Pizza order.
April 13, 2013 at 2:36 am #787422
JiggersMemberNo beef tomato on the menu? I guess I don’t have a reason to go there now. That’s about as easy as it gets. Beef tomato? How hard is it to screw that dish up?
April 13, 2013 at 3:03 am #787423
pigeonmomParticipantdatamuse, I’m curious to hear about the Lakewood Chinese restaurant too.
My partner and I drive all the way from Olympia to Lakewood for burgers.
Olympia, Tumwater and Lacey have horrible Chinese food.
April 13, 2013 at 3:37 am #787424
CeeBeeParticipantMaude, I think it’s what you grew up with. I love doughy potstickers and think the skimpy goyza are not even worth eating. I eat out A LOT and not every Chinese place has everything I like, so I hunt out the tasty specialties and don’t expect every place to do everything as I like it. Who else has the original WS “restaurant review” forums posting from 2007 as one of their favorite bookmarks :-) https://westseattleblog.com/2007/08/west-seattle-dishes-to-die-for
April 13, 2013 at 5:42 am #787425
datamuseParticipantpigeonmom, I’ll be down there tomorrow and see if I can find it again…it was kind of around the back of a shopping center and I’m not sure how I found it in the first place! It was good though.
April 13, 2013 at 4:25 pm #787426
WSBKeymasterCeeBee, that one even predated the Forums … it was part of the reason we eventually started them, because as our regular traffic grew into thousands of people, more wanted to discuss restaurant/business type recommendations. That one even resulted in WSB being on the Skylark menu for a long time – the tater tots were for a few years afterward listed on the menu there (I have a copy in a drawer somewhere) as “As seen on West Seattle Blog”! – TR
April 13, 2013 at 5:07 pm #787427
inactiveMemberCeeBee-
I totally remember. A comment thread for the ages! I just bookmarked it!
Six years and *gasp* pounds later… I wish the pounds would fly as quickly as the time has. Wow.
April 13, 2013 at 5:19 pm #787428
inactiveMemberOh, and I had a late lunch at Chopsticks. Many places have food that is just offensive but this was not. And the young waitress I had was as sweet as could be. I think I am a Lee’s loyalist though, but will likely stop in their again to try a different dish. The one I has was pretty blah…
April 14, 2013 at 6:17 pm #787429
MonkeyMemberWe use to get delivery from Ho Win and loved it, so we called Copstix yesterday to find out more information regarding delivery. Turns out Chopstix only delivers within a 3 mile radius of the restaurant and I was told Alki was too far away. Not sure if the realize how much business they have lost because of this choice, but oh well.
April 14, 2013 at 7:57 pm #787430
GinaParticipantToday’s (Sunday) Seattle Times has the recipe for Judy Fu’s Pork Jiao-zi, page 6 of the PNW magazine section.
http://seattletimes.com/html/pacificnw/2020703174_pacificptaste14.html
For those that don’t have access to a paper.
April 14, 2013 at 10:05 pm #787431
cjboffoliParticipantSchwaggy is correct. Szechuan (Chuan) is among the spiciest of Chinese cuisine (though Hunan is also up there). Even though it is not located in Sichuan province, restaurants in Beijing tend to serve hot and spicy Chuan foods. Whenever I’m there I’m always knocked out of my chair by the bold flavors and overuse of hot pepper.
Sigh. I wish Seattle had more good Chinese food.
April 16, 2013 at 11:10 pm #787432
hopeyParticipantWe tried take-out last night. It is clear that their kitchen is having execution problems.
We ordered General Tso’s chicken, Ma Po Pork/Tofu, and Mongolian Beef. When we arrived to pick up the order, the beef was not ready. It took an additional 20 minutes before the beef came out, at which point everything else was cold. We took it home anyway.
The chicken was not fried properly. You could still taste the flour in the dough, and the chicken itself seemed undercooked. My husband has had “excellent” Ma Po Tofu before; he declared this one undercooked as well. He said the tofu should have had a crispy outer skin, which it did not. The mongolian beef was decent and tasty but not spectacular.
Our opinion is that a key issue is they are not running their fryer anywhere near hot enough. They are also having obvious kitchen coordination problems, which is somewhat surprsing considering that the owners claimed to have been in the restaurant business for 20 years.
We’ll try it again in six months or so, but not before then.
April 17, 2013 at 8:38 pm #787433
sacatoshParticipantI would agree that a fryer may not be heated high enough – the potstickers we had the first time and the egg rolls we had last time were both slightly oilier than I’d prefer, which CAN happen when the oil is used too many times in quick succession without allowing it to return to temp. (but this is not always the case, and didn’t detract from the overall meal for me, which is why I neither mentioned it here nor brought it to their attention.)
Everything else we had was great, including General Tso’s Chicken and sweet and sour pork this last weekend, and orange chicken the previous time, which are all deep fried. There may be one single fryer out of 2 or 3 or 4 that just isn’t heating to temp or was used too quickly for back to back dishes.
Per the WSB rules: Did anyone call them and ask them to check the fryer temp? For that matter, did anyone of the folks who posted complaints above actually alert the manager(s) to their complaints?
April 18, 2013 at 7:23 pm #787434
datamuseParticipantBit off topic, but for those who asked, I’m pretty sure the place I was thinking of was Tacoma Szechuan.
April 18, 2013 at 11:35 pm #787435
ktlovesjelliesMemberMy boyfriend and I live a block away and have been meaning to try it out since it opened. We finally got food from them last night.
We ordered take out and were told to come pick it up in 20 minutes, and sure enough we arrived in 20 minutes and our food was ready to go. They seemed really busy but despite that everyone who worked there were eager to make sure we were taken care of and very nice.
We got the vegetable chow mein and vegetable fried rice. We liked both – pretty standard American Chinese food. My boyfriend had the Broccoli Beef, said it was good. I had the Family Tofu and that was also very good, the tofu was fried and there didn’t seem to be the same problem that everyone else has seemed to be having with their food not being fried enough.
We will definitely be getting food from them again. I really hope they can iron out some of the problems that it sounds like they’re having. I want to see them stick around in the neighborhood.
April 19, 2013 at 1:55 am #787436
Genesee HillParticipantTried Zippy’s yesterday. It was GREAT.
April 19, 2013 at 6:16 am #787437
JanSParticipantLove Zippy’s…yummy! Now, if they were only closer and delivered :D
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