Gold Bowl Chinese Restaurant

I’ve eaten here many times only because the food is awesome and its never crowded! However, the service at this restaurant is horrible! After your order arrives, the waitress disappears in the back and doesn’t check back to see if you need anything! To be fare, I must admit that I love the food at this restaurant! Its was my dinning experience yesterday that was total racial, uncalled for and I’ll never go back! Half way through my meal, the female wait staff, which I assume was the owner asked me if I was an American or a Mexican because (she said) «Mexicans are bad tippers!» She went on to say that the last time I ate there I had left a small tip of only $ 2 so I must be a Mexican! I did in fact eat at the Gold Bowl several weeks ago and my bill was exactly $ 5.25, so a $ 2 tip is reasonable tip. The Mexican comment was uncalled for! The Mexican’s I have the privilege of knowing are hard working, generous, respectful people! I’ll never go back to this restaurant! I know understand why there is never a crowd at this place!

We’ve gotten take out several times here and it’s always amazing.
The Mongolian beef and chicken chow yuk are our favorites.
Their crab puffs are killer also.

the food is really bad we ordered 2 chow mien dishes 1 chicken with pan fried noodles and one beef chow mien. we also ordered fried shrimp, all to go. I got it home and was astonished to find shrimp laden with grease chow Mein with tons of corn starch type sauce and so overcooked the pea pods were almost grey. I took all back and they refused to refund or remake the food. I was very insistent but to no avail also they gave us one 2 oz. container of sauce for a large order of shrimp 2 thingys of soy sauce for the order and a pag of crispy noodles that weighed 1 oz. yes I weighed it! there was at least 2 ½ lb. of chow mien AND if that was not enough when I took it back I asked for more noodles she handed me another bag with the same amount of noodles and wanted $ 2.00! I did takeit needless to say and will NEVER return to this place. We went to Ho Ho’s and received Great food and wonderful service.

First time here yesterday, and the owners were so kind and accommodating for my high maintenance vegetarian self! I placed my order for take out, and this kind woman, co-​owner working the front, insisted I take home a tub of eggflour soup, tea, and hot spring rolls. All complimentary! I asked why and she said «it wasn’t a very busy day today. Better for you to have it than us!»
I ordered the veggie low mein, the tofu vegetable, and the 3 flavor vegetable. It was more than enough to feed myself and my 3 roommates and the grand total was $ 21.50. I really can’t understand all the searing, negative reviews on here. Maybe y’all were having a rough day? I’ll certainly be going back here.

Really affordable, so friendly, nice vegetarian selection. Love the abundant fresh veggies (including water chestnuts!) in the lo mein. Snobby Portlanders judging this place harshly just because it isn’t woven of hemp or whatever are disingenuous, pretentious, and fulfilling my least favorite Portlandia stereotypes. Get over yrselves, chill, and have a bite to eat.

It’s not as good as it used to be with the new owners and all, but I gave them a second chance and had the best egg foo young ever! Maybe they got a new cook or are just getting better with time. Either way, this place was a childhood favorite so it’s hard to let go. I don’t want to see this place turned into something else, so I will keep my hopes up and go back for more! More egg foo young!

The food is terrible and it’s perfect. Every now and then I get a craving for some really awful Chinese food. Because, I don’t know, maybe I hate myself. Gold Bowl gives me exactly what I want. The food is greasy, abundant, affordable, indigestible, and stinks. I mean literally, it smells like feet. The egg rolls are bigger than my fist, and full of… something. It’s the perfect meal for an evening of self loathing, stomach aches, self loathing, and then watching reruns of The Golden Girls and crying because you and your ex would use quotes from it all the time and now there is just a barren vacuous chasm in your heart that you fill with Mongolian beef. Oh how I miss you Melissa.

Imagine you’ve entered a time machine and traveled to 1975, and it doesn’t smell too good. There’s a paneled dining room that’s seen better days, old folks and a smell of – god knows what. We get our food to go here and I think the key word for the food is serviceable, which is to say the food is okay if you just want cheap, fast food Chinese. If you want really good Chinese food, head to Shandong, Wong’s King or Happy House. If you live in SE and want something right away, come here. I tried the crab puffs, a staple that is hard to mess up, they were pretty good, could have been crispier, but nice and creamy, with a faint hint of crab. The sweet and sour shrimp was what you’d get at a mall, heavily battered shrimp in a sticky red sauce, no veggies. But they did give me tons of food, got three meals out of it, and the rice was really tasty. If you’re looking for a lot of okay, greasy food that is really just okay, this is the place, Okay???

Awful. The mall food court would be better.
I was craving Hot & Sour soup, so I stopped in for to go order… the inside said enough. Outdated, dingy, empty… I should have left… But sometimes those are the hidden gems.
I ordered hot & sour soup and some egg rolls.
The soup was so gross. I don’t know how food doesn’t have flavor, but seriously, no flavor. When I spooned it it was jelly like and tofu so small! I had never seen anything like it before, like they watered down real Hot & Sour soup. As it got cold it just turned into a solid mass. So.Bland.
Egg rolls were about 4″ around and once biten into, it was quickly on the napkin. It was all dough, egg roll wrapper. The filling was creamy even tho I thought I saw some lettuce. Weirdest egg roll EVER! I’m 420 friendly and have a pretty iron stomach, and STILL thought this shit was out of control crappy. Ugh.
The lady was then on phone telling someone THEY were wrong and ordered the wrong lunch special. She didn’t wash her hands after the phone call… idk.
After my crappy soup & dough AND AFTER reading all the reviews, I’m shocked the owner would have done that. Eh.
My friend brought over HoHo restaurant a few blocks away soup & rolls a few weeks later… In was SHOCKED! SO.GOOD.

Seriously Portland — what’s up with the mediocre food? I moved here a few months ago, and I’d say 85% of my dining experiences have been 3 star or less.
Here’s a big less. This place is a disaster. An example from our crappy lunch today:
We ordered pot stickers. They came out looking suspect. The wrapper was cooked to a tough hard edge. When I bit into it, it was still FROZEN on the inside. A clue that they may not make their own pot stickers. We cracked open a few more just to see if they were also frozen on the inside. Yup. We sent them back. When the waitress (who was a beeyotch, btw) brought them back, I was shocked to see the same order on the plate, all broken in half pieces, now charred to a nice, hard brown shell. Are you f*ing kidding me? Who would serve food like that? I looked at her like she was nuts. She looked at me with a «What?» attitude. I said, «You really should’ve just given us a new order. We can’t even chew these».
Anyway, the fried rice tasted toxic, the chow mein was East Coast style slimy mung beans not noodles.
This place is gross and I hate it. I’m giving up on PDX food altogether — please, if anybody reads this who has some good suggestions on where to get decent food, message me. I beg of you.

Here’s the deal with the gold bowl, once upon a time it was super good. It used to be owned by this nice family and they knew what they were doing and how to treat their customers. Then they sold their business and it went down hill.

This place was amazing when the elderly couple owned it and Sherri managed the front of house. When she sold the restaurant, the quality went down hill. They tried to keep the old menus but had no idea what was in the dishes, so often the dishes we knew and loved changed. It went from being our go-​to for cheap Americanized Chinese food to someplace I wouldn’t go if i was drunk and starving.
Seriously, don’t go here. They can’t cook veggies correctly and their seafood is terrible. In a city like Portland that has amazing asian food, this place really should be ashamed.

I have given this place much business and praise over the years. We usually go for take-​out and the food has always been spot on, as well as the friendliness of the staff. I hadn’t been in a while however, and decided to take my mom there for lunch today. I was embarrassed and angry with the complete indifference that the woman treated my mom with. She was impatient, never looked at us or asked how we were doing or returned to our table at all. My mom started to attempt at getting her attention to request a to-​go box but the woman’s phone rang and she answered it and walked away. When we went to pay she was sitting at the front counter on the phone and she practically shook her head at us as if to say no I’m not your cashier and I’m not helping you. We had to stand and wait for the younger, nice kid to come check us out. The food was not that great either anymore. After all these years I will never go back. Never. So disappointing and disrespectful.

YUCK.
1) I ordered eggrolls. You all know what eggrolls look like, right? No. Apparently they’re ungodly abominations of thick dough surrounding inedible awfulness.
2) I ordered pork chow mein. It was ground pork, celery, bean sprouts, and a thin sauce flavored vaguely like salt and not much else. I think it was supposed to come with crispy noodles, but I fear what those «crispy noodles» would end up looking like, even if I didn’t get something I was supposed to get.
Not even Sriracha could fix this.
Run. Run fast and far.

Eww! What happened, they used to be pretty good??? We’ve been eating there for years and they’ve been descent — OK food, big portions and good price anyway… I’m all for 2^nd chances but we’ve had 5 bad meals in a row! When we called in our order today, we specifically asked if it would be fresh because the last few times haven’t been and she assured us it would be GREAT!!! Well, it WAS NOT!!! Dry fried rice, rubber General Tso’s chicken, soggy and just plain sad Kung Pow and I won’t even try to describe the Egg Roll… Don’t do it, give your intestines a break and just avoid this place!!! Oh and when we called them to tell them that again, we weren’t happy with the food, she yelled that we shouldn’t order it any more then… We won’t and neither should you!

THE GOLDEN BOWL!!! The name! The weird building! It must be awesome!!!
But it wasn’t. At all. Yes, I love tacky run down and weird. If there are old people I am stoked. It had all of this and thus I give it a star.
But the food was beyond terrible. TERRIBLE. TERRRRRRIBBBBBBBLLE!
That’s really all you need to know.

The food here is sooooooooooo fresh and so good. The owner makes the fried rice from scratch everytime, a recipe passed down form her grandmother. (I talked with her a bit) I’m not sure where these bad reviews are coming from. I am particular about what I eat and I’m the first one to write about a place that’s not worthy but Gold Bowl is really good. The ambience is strange but the food makes up for it plus they scored 100% 3 times in a row on their health score according to the news. :) AND they give you sooooooooooo much food. I love Gold Bowl!!!

I’ve been going here off and on for a few years. It is my go to for quick and comforting Chinese food. Even with the ownership change I still go back.
It’s very basic and somewhat greasy Chinese food. No complaints. Personally I prefer the ambience of a place like this than to pretty much any Chinese restaurant in Portland. Kinda dark, dingy, quiet, random elderly people sitting in the corner alone. It’s my kind of place. A place to blend in without pretense.

I would have agreed with Amber S. had I written this review when she did. My wife and I live in the neighborhood and have been going to the Gold Bowl for over 10 years and the food was exceptional. However, in February the nice couple who owned it sold the business. We went back once which was one too many times.
Food quality has gone waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down hill! The flavor, size, freshness and presentation were very good. Now it is just disgusting mush. Stay away! Stay far away!

Looking for some delicious Chinese food? I highly suggest Gold Bowl Restaurant right off of Powell. Low price, big portions and fantastic service. The restaurant itself is pretty dingy, but decorated well. The egg flower and hot and sour soup is amazing! My favorite would have to be the BBQ pork and pineapple chicken. The fried rice is touch and go, but pretty good. Plenty of booths and tables, with a small lounge with lottery machines. Great for a causal date and late night eats. Great location right off Powell next to a convenience store, US bank ATM, The Original Taco House and Rose City Strip.