David D.
Yelp
I have been meaning to get around to this one; that's basically what I felt when I finally took the dive and went into a China Star. I've been fairly enamored with Hunan's Chinese since I moved to Rochester, and for sit-down Chinese, I will stand by them for eternity, or until they're outdone. But China Star has won my heart via my wallet. They are the Chinese take-out royalty, as far as I'm concerned.
While seating is available within China Star restaurants, I'm not going to bother to review it; they're basically what you'd get from a mall food court, and in no way reflects the true virtue of China Star, it's food.
Variety is fairly vast, about the offerings you'd expect from any chinese restaurant. I find the appetizer selection to be fairly limited compared to other chinese restaurants, but given that their method relies on dishes that use the same frozen components, it's understandable. I think that the lack of variety is probably what stops me from giving them a full 5 star rating and backing. The entrées available give enough variety, but I could see familiarity breeding contempt here.
Flavor-wise, China Star is acceptable. The primary dishes, General Tsos, Sesame Chicken, and other breaded dishes are tasty and have that wonderful deep-fried combination of juice and crunch; personal experience tells me that straying from the tried and true seems to cause a quality drop; Lo Mein from China Star is a pretty bland affair (not that Lo Mein isn't usually, but notably so here), and other dishes, such as the Spicy Chicken Wing meal simply don't bring much to the table.
But, all of that being said, it misses the point of China Star completely. You don't go to China Star for the exquisite study of chinese cuisine. You go for a metric ton of quality General Tsos chicken, Crab Rangoon, or whatever deep-friend chinese dish you desire. As other reviewers have stated, the portions are gargantuan in nature. My first time going to China Star, I was ordering late at night for a hungry friend. Expecting smaller portions, I ordered the Lo Mein meal, General Tsos, and an order of Crab Rangoons. I think that I was given about 25 lbs of food. Okay, maybe not that much, but good gravy was that a mistake. Even worse? That didn't even top $20. I had to rouse friends from sleep to come eat the food while it was still fresh, for fear that they wouldn't believe the quality that we got for such a cheap price.
Yes, that is China Star's secret; it does a few things, it does them consistently, it does them well, and it does them in portions big enough to feed all of Beijing on one bill. If you need takeout chinese (yes, you can need it), go to China Star. If you want anything more, go somewhere else, and grab some China Star on the way home.
A few words of warning though; Cash only, and while delivery is available through a separate service, it's by no means cost effective. Go pick it up yourself.