Grand Eastern

There’s no Japanese food in this restaurant anymore, it’s Chinese and Thai. I missed the juice shrimp with white rice that they used to have on their menu and the tasty Alaska roll.

tl;dr
Better than most Chinese takeouts nearby — kind of pricey though!
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Believe them when they say they don’t use MSG. I’m hypersensitive to MSG, and they pass my test.
I also think that they are less greasy and more bland-​tasting than a lot of the Chinese takeouts nearby, which should be a good sign.
They offer a huge menu, but I’ve only tried probably five or six of their dinner specials. I don’t think anything I’ve got is amazing, but I would say it’s on the better end of most Chinese takeouts I’ve had.
For example, Grand Eastern does a really good job of not drenching stir-​fries in sauce. This seems to be a big problem with Chinese takeouts, as they are probably trying to disguise the taste of their mystery meat, haha, but Grand Eastern doesn’t do that.
For the dinner special, you choose between a dish, white/​fried rice, and egg roll/​egg drop soup/​hot and sour soup. The dishes that were really safe picks for me have been the standard vegetable+meat combo (broccoli beef, string bean chicken… etc.) and their pepper steak. I’ve had their Hunan Chicken twice — the first time was AMAZING, but the second time was so terrible that I threw half of it away (which I never do to edible food unless it’s actually dangerous to consume it because I’m just so adamant about not wasting food, but that time was just too horrible). My suitemate really likes their sesame chicken, and it does look nice.
Their fried rice is fair if you want to go for that.
The egg rolls at Grand Eastern are kind of weird, as they have this really thick, almost doughy crust that contrasts with the standard thin, crispy kind that you get at most places. I don’t know if I’m going crazy, but it’s actually growing on me so I tend to get it more and more now (even though I thought it was pretty bad the first time).
Their egg drop soup sucks (like ¹⁄₅). It’s basically globs of cornstarch in liquid.
Their hot sour is not bad — it can get kind of spicy, but I don’t feel that bad about it because I don’t think they’re just drenching the whole thing in pepper — there’s actually flavor to it (and huge pieces of tofu, hehe).
They also have sushi, but I have no idea how it tastes. I will just want to remind everyone that the one chef often handles everything, and he doesn’t actually wash his hands between cooking, handling money, and making sushi. He just puts on gloves before starting to make sushi.
Pricing is more expensive than most Chinese takeouts because tax isn’t included in the list price. The front desk lady can be kind of mean and rude at times. She does speak English, but I think she selectively ignores patrons at times (she complains about customers after they leave sometimes in Chinese).

I live just down the block from this place and have tried it a few times and every dish I’ve ever tried tastes exactly the same deep fried cheep oil. No spices used in any dish and even there supposed «steamed» items tastes like I’m eating oil.
Can’t wait for this place to close. It’s a large, potentially nice space for a decent restaurant.

I’ve been here a few times because my friend Jade N. lives near by. For inexpensive Chinese, Grand Eastern does the trick. My favorite, 8 pork fried dumpings for $ 4.50.

There are several Chinese restaurants that I live by and this one has the nicest presentation. The place is neat and there is always seating available. The food is fairly priced but compared to the other local places, the portions are small.
Everything is so mediocre that I can’t find much to say.
I’ll just touch on some random points:
— They charge tax. Most other Chinese places don’t.
— You have to pick up your own napkins/​utensils at a side counter and they never point that out to you.
— I called 15 minutes before closing for take-​out and they grilled me about getting there quickly so they can leave work.
— Nothing I’ve ordered ever tasted bad
— Nothing I’ve ordered ever tasted amazing
3-​stars sound about right.

This is my local Chinese place of choice. The map on the right is misleading– it’s on Lex between 97^th and 98^th. My favorite dishes: honey short ribs, chow fun, and sushi. I think of it as a secret place because you wouldn’t think of going in from looking at it. It doesn’t look like much on the outside but inside it’s nice. The most conspicuous local Chinese place, Chinatown East on 3^rd and 93^rd, is disgusting. The food is better at Grand Eastern and cheaper too.
There is a new luxury apartment building across the street from them which is getting closer to opening every day. I don’t think they have thought about it properly at all. The one time I got a conversation going with them they asked me to put menus under all the doors in my building. I tried to tell them that that kind of marketing is not good and that they should try instead to build relationships with their customers. I don’t go often enough to wear them down on this point, however.

Was it healthy? Absolutely not!
Tasty? Oh yes!
This place reminds me of the Chinese food I ate here in the 70’s (Every Sunday, it felt like)
So as an occasional pleasure absolutely!
But as I was looking for some thing healthy tonight — I should have listen to fellow Unilocalers… (I had looked at review before ordering — menupages seemed more… friendly)

Being so close to Grand Eastern Corp. my roommate and I decided to grab a quick bite around 10 PM. Only a quarter of the menu was posted on the wall which I was unaware of until the woman behind the counter handed me the carryout menu. Even though there must have been five people working in the restaurant, none of them spoke English. Immense language barrier aside, I was effectively able to order chicken and broccoli with rice and a spring roll. If you have questions, don’t expect a response in any sort recognizable dialect.
My meal cost about $ 8 which was a little expensive because even though there was a decent amount of food, it certainly wasn’t good. The broccoli tasted fresh, but the chicken was rubbery and the dough of the spring roll completely overpowered the noodles inside. Plus some crazy drunk guy started yelling at the Chinese lady behind the counter. Mind you, this was the same lady that spoke one and a half words of English. So either the crazy drunk guy was just belligerently out of his mind or just upset he couldn’t order his Kung Pao chicken because Ms.“I-run-a-restaurant-in-NYC-but-don’t-speak-English” couldn’t take his order.
Looking to throw away some coin because you just don’t care, try Grand Eastern, your luck might be better than mine.

I don’t know why Grand Eastern is listed as a «corporation» when it should be listed as a janky chinese joint in Spanish Harlem. My walnut shrimp was basically just deep-​fried shrimp covered in duck sauce. My dry-​sauteed green beans was made with the wrong kind of green beans, had all the wrong seasonings and wasn’t actually dry-​sauteed. And finally, the corn egg drop soup was basically a goopy mess of corn starch. Terrible. Eat only if you enjoy culinary punishment.