Chiang's Gourmet

Dan & I joined many of our Memento Meal compatriots for a dinner out at Chiang's Gourmet - a Chinese restaurant with two menus: one for dishes familiar to the American palate, and one of less familiar dishes.

The dining room greeted me with a slightly depressing dinginess. The well worn crater in the chair forced me to perch on the edge, lest I slide uncontrollably into slump like a tiny child sitting at the grown-ups table, eyes barely peeking out above the plates. Thick white paper jutted out at harsh and uneven angles from underneath the lazy susan, protecting the white table cloth that covered the large round table. Service was delivered to the entire room of diners by a young, solitary waiter, drifting around us in a slow-motion, ultra-familiar auto-pilot. All the dishes were better than average, including appetizers of jellyfish and tendon, green noodles with pork and chicken, eggplant, dry cooked string bean, a plate of leek, squid specks of dried shrimp. Only bummer was the pepper chicken that was missing Sichuan peppercorns. I would return every day of the week based on what came out of their kitchen, but I cringe at the memory of their bleak dining room and that muffed-up old chair.

Real Chinese food! Don't come here if you want white linen service and beautiful ambiance. This is the perfect Chinese restaurant -- they put money into the food versus what's hung on the walls and the napkins you use. This is authentic and well made Chinese food. Five star chicken, cold spicy beef, spicy fish noodle, Chinese brocolli with garlic, beef noodle soup are amoung my favorite. Family owned and operated -- support this place!

Five Star Spicy Hot Chicken. This is the best dish they have! So good! Not as spicy as the name would suggest, you MUST order it.

Totally loving that there are separate gwailo and native menus at Chiangs. Gwailo sample items: Mongolian beef, Moo Shoo pork, & Gen Chos chicken. Native items include fried pigs intestine, cattle tendon w/hot sauce (which I just ordered), and the true differentiator: odor tofu! Vying with Shanghai Garden as my favorite Chinese food in Seattle.

Traditional and authentic Chinese restaurant you can find near Seattle. The owner is Chinese and most meals can be modified to your taste buds. The owner and staff were super friendly and professional. The restaurant looks old, but it’s fairly clean for a Chinese restaurant. It’s been there at least for 20 years. This is our third time trying out this place, and the food is deliciously steady. Our favorite dish is the Shanghai noodles, you can ask to add spice to some of the dishes if you prefer spicy and hot. Overall, the food was delicious and the atmosphere is homey.

Food was exceptional, staff were very polite and attentive. Not happy about sitting near the kitchen but that is where the larger tables are. The crispy spicy beef was great. I love that there is a menu for both Chinese and English speakers

Probably one of the tastiest Chinese restaurant in the Seattle area. The exterior of the building is a little off putting as it’s not something you would drive by and think “I have to try that place.” You have to get past the chaotic-no-wait-list-you-stand-in-line but the food is worth it. Parking: yes but small lot. Dog friendly: no Family friendly: yes even though there is a sign that says no minor FOOD: DIMSUM MENU: 1. Fritters of twisted dough with shrimp: 2 star. no price as this was the hostess “recommendation.” I use this in quotes cause it wasn’t a suggestion, more like she’s telling us need to get it. Verbiage of the menu is kind of weird as most people know this as Chinese donuts or crueller. We agreed to get this mostly cause we had no idea what this was. 2. Baked cake wrapped with fritters of twisted dough and egg $7: 5 stars! This was like a massive hot pocket-sandwich. The “cake” is kind of like a less buttery puff pastry that flakes with sesame seed. It was sliced in half length wise and stuffed with 3-4 pieces of crueller and scrambled egg. Was probably the best thing and definitely worth the price. 3. Crispy biscuit wrapped with shredded turnip (2) $6: 5 star! This was actually really good but wish it was bigger or came with more pieces. The exterior was nicely pan seared and turnip was very tender and had great flavor tho a tad bit heavy handed with white pepper but I liked it! 4. Pan fried pork bun (3) $6.50: 3 star. It was decent - good sear on the bun but it was pretty small and the flavor was okay. The best part was the bun to meat ratio. 5. Pan fried leek bun (2) $4.00: 3 star. I think this was more like the garlic chive then leek. Similar to the pan fried pork bun but one less piece but cost less. 6. Steam chicken feet (Phoenix feet) $6.50: 5 Star! Holy hell these were really good! The feet most have come from some steroid chicken cause they were massive! The flavor, the sauce, and the perfect tenderness!! REGULAR MENU: 1. Green onion pancakes $10: 4 star - these were not the tradition scallion type pancake were you had the scallion all over and you could see the swirl. This was more like scallions we’re packed into a dough ball and completely rolled flat then deep fried. Super crispy and hot which was nice to know it was fried to order. 2. Fried tofu $11: 3 star - they were okay. The best I’ve had so far is at King’s in Bellevue (but I think they’re now called Royal Kitchen). The menu just said “fried tofu” with no added description. So it wasnt the salt and pepper style or anything.. just deep fried tofu squares with some scallion bits. RESTAURANT AND MENU: For dimsum, they have a 1 pager, double sided, menu. The front page is more like Asian street food and the back page has more of the dim sum items. It was really confusing reading their dim sum menu because it’s not really dim sum and their description isn’t like how you’d find at other restaurants. They have a full lunch/dinner menu as well. Hence why I broke up the food description so you know where to find it. The restaurant is small, pretty tight with the number of booths and tables. The tables are all the larger style for big parties of 6 or 8 people. Like most chinese restaurant, they don’t have a great entrance way/waiting area. They didn’t have a waiting list so there was just a bunch of us crowding in the door way in line. There wasn’t a separate line for to-go/pick up either. It was really confusing. SERVICE: They seemed understaff. I honestly felt bad for the workers because they were hustling when they were so busy yet so behind. We only really interacted with the hostess who also turned out to be the waitress taking our order. She’s provided typical Chinese customer service when you speak Chinese - she told us what we really wanted, judged what we ordered and made edits to our order without telling us lol

I drove past it for years, not thinking twice about it. But after several visits it's become my favorite Chinese restaurant in the area. What it lacks in curb appeal, it makes up for with excellent food and reasonable prices. Highly recommended!

Chiang's did not disappoint, and I look forward to another visit! Pictured: 1) Homemade noodles, ground pork & diced dried bean curd w/ bean paste sauce 炸酱面 2) Dry sautéed string bean w/pork 干煸四季豆 3) Pan-fried rice cake Shanghai-style上海炒年糕 Favorite was easily the rice cake since it is such a comfort food (if you like chowfun, get this); it had a light soy sauce flavor and not too oily; would definitely come back for this dish in particular. The zhajiangmian was an amazing stand-alone dish. The green beans were not spicy but still tasty. Price was reasonable since the portions were generous...excited for leftovers later. Also, the lunch menu is a bargain for the low price and big portions (saw other patrons enjoying this). It also sounded like there are some good vegetarian options.