Adam B.
Yelp
The portions here are bigger than most places ... that seems to be why a lot of people are leaving such high reviews. In Central Massachusetts, getting more of a mediocre thing is seen as being better than getting less of a great thing. Because this food is no better than your average mall's food court Chinese food. It's average, at best. But there are heaping servings of average.
Let me start out by saying that Americanized Chinese food is my favorite food on the planet. I've eaten at the finest restaurants in the world ... and if I had to choose one thing to eat forever, it would be Chinese food. So, let's just say I've had Chinese at just about every restaurant in MA. Los Angeles has notoriously terrible 'junk food' Chinese food. There's none worth wasting the calories on there.
China Lantern is bland, boxed, fried and reheated stuff ... very little taste other than the sugar. The crab rangoon were the worst I've ever had. It tastes like a smudge of cream cheese, a scoop of sugar, no crab and fried between giant dough. So disappointing ... crab rangoon are my spirit animal.
The General Tso's Chicken tasted like it was fried, frozen and re-fried. Crunchy ... very little chicken to bread ratio and the sauce was little more than sugary syrup. I tasted no garlic, ginger or orange peel. One-note and blah.
The fried rice ... I knew when I saw the yellow color that I was in trouble. We all know the really good fried rice is brown. It tasted like the bags of Goya yellow rice you mix with water. Hardly any pork or egg and certainly not made fresh. Even after 3 packets of soy sauce, it was still bland.
Instead of freshly made duck sauce, you get the generic packets. No hot mustard.
Needless to say, I won't be coming back. Yong Shing is about the best Chinese I've found in the Central MA area, even though the quality has gone down hill quite a bit there, it's still 4 out of 5. Chum Lee's in Shrewsbury would also be a 4 of 5. When you get out into the North Shore ... Jade East in Tewksbury, the Billerica/Chelmsford places or The Kow Loon on Route One, you are really talking 5 star 'junk food Chinese'.
If you want a mountain of average food ... this is a good spot for you. If you want the best tasting Chinese, go elsewhere. Chinese food is hard to get wrong ... so this disappoints me greatly.