Chinatown Express

«Chinatown Express»
It’s $ 6.00 for three items; where else in town can anybody get this?
The food here is delicious and they always give more.
I reside in Tustin, but every so often I get on the freeway and visit here.
And, with my every visit there have not been a hit and/​or miss meal. You know what I mean, some days it is delicious, some days the ingredients are off. ;)
For $ 6.00 it’s worth it. Come to Santa Ana and experience the Chinatown Express restaurant!

Your average Chinese but not really Chinese food. I wandered into here out of curiosity and was amazed by how tightly packed with food the boxes were. Like the other review said, they overflow the boxes with food! All I got was the orange chicken which was crispy with a nice orange tang to it. All the food was steaming hot which makes me confident it’s cooked fresh.
I’d give more stars if the tables there weren’t so sticky.

Slightly better than Panda Express, nothing to write home about. They give tons of noodles. Cheap because noodles are cheap to make. I had their jalapeño chicken, not as good as I would thought. I also had their broccoli and beef, eh, it was AVERAGE at best. I wouldn’t go back because of those reasons and the fact they don’t take credit cards.

this was a 4 until i got toward the end of the orange chicken and started noticing a real odd flavor. small, thin, slices of orange peal just gave everything an off putting texture. really, really liked everything until this over powered the entire pile of food.
love that they have the crushed red chile hot sauce.

i was so hungry and was looking for a place where i can have quick fix lunch. i know i wanted to eat asian food but i dont know which one should i go to. thats when i found this place… located in the area where there are alot of mexican and spanish people… so you shouldnt be surprised when u see spanish people eating here instead of asian.
this place was empty when i came in, and theres only this one old chinese guy inside… i think he’s the owner or something. he was cleaning when i came in and didnt really greet me or anything… but it was okay, coz i didnt expect good service when coming here. anyways, i told him i wanted to get one item combo, but he gave me two items combo and charge me two items price. so i was like whatever. i got their mushroom pork and orange chicken with chow mein and fried rice (
). i wanted to get their fish fillet instead of orange chicken, but the fish wasnt available. their other selections are not that great and very limited too. so i paid around $ 6 including tax for this. for this price, they sure gave me a generous portion. but i wasnt really surprised with the portion as ive been to place where they gave u more to the extent you cant even close the box. but its definitely enough for 2−3meals.
the orange chicken taste pretty good with a hint of orange glaze. i must admit they did a good job on this one, especially for a person who isnt a big fan of orange chicken. the mushroom pork was mehhh. it was bland, hard, oily, and i just didnt like it. the chow mein and fried rice was also too oily for me, bland, and it wasnt satisfying at all. they also gave me a shiracha sauce and trust me, its not the real shiracha. the sauce is so watered down and doesnt have a texture anymore. i like im eating spicy water…
so if u r around in the area and want something quick and cheap, this place is definitely worth a try. but as for me, i rather spend my money on something more expensive but i feel more satisfied. be prepared to bring cash coz this place is CASH ONLY!

If the food wasn’t fattening and bad for me I would honestly be able to eat this everyday. Fast chinese food is my weakness. I’ve been coming here for over a year now, and the taste of their food always stays the same. It’s flavorful yet not too greasy and the ingredients are fresh. They also have those stamp cards you bring in everytime and if you get 10 stamps you get a free meal. As we speak I’m on my 9^th — one more to go woohoo!

Ever wonder where, exactly, the trashy Americanized Chinese food in Orange County is? The restaurant that is cheap, in absolutely no way good for you, but will still leave you with a satisfied belly full of sodium and post-​bathroom regrets?
Look no further.
Chinatown Express is the greasier, likely disowned cousin of other Chinese fast food chains. Sinister in its ways but benevolent in its tastes, Chinatown Express will absolutely not try and fool you into thinking what you’re about to shove down your gullet is completely healthy, prim, and proper food. It’s fast food, and by golly, the place suffers no identity crisis. But don’t let the often misunderstood tag of «fast-​food» fool you here– the food is hot and freshly made a majority of the time, which I’ll get to in a bit.
What makes Chinatown Express good is that it epitomizes all that is glorious and absolutely awful in American-​Chinese fast food. The food is greasy, the portions are stuffed until the bloated box begins to practically lose its structural integrity, and frankly nothing that greets you under the heat lamps will make you think of bamboo-​covered mountains or the Great Wall. And yet it will probably offer you something you grew up with, that guilty pleasure meal that your working mom or cooking-​inept father brought home on some nights.
And the portions– really, I’m not joking here. The mamacitas that help serve up your food treat you as if you’re a starving Third-​World orphan. When you order your Chinese fast food starches of choice (fried rice, chow mein, or steamed rice), their immediate question– nay, suggestion– is whether you want half and half. Not just to sample both starches, but because that way it appears they can try and fit even MORE food in as the flecks of rice sit neatly between the space left by the noodles.
By no means, however, is the food quality actually bad. While you order, there’s a window where you can peek in and see the chefs hard at work, wokking up fresh food. Trays are replaced quickly in large part because the turnover is so fast due to the mammoth portions they dish out. And for the people that like to stereotype (it’s only Mexican food if a Mexican makes it, it’s only Italian food if an Italian makes it, etc.), the head purveyor, armed with his army of Latin chefs, is Asian from what I could tell from the multiple times I’ve been there. So rest your troubled hearts, the place is putting the China in Express… or something like that.
That’s not to say there aren’t a few misses, of course. On bad days the chow mein shines in a sheen of oil that is too much for even me, a staunch defender of the fatty and the oily, to stomach. A few staples, such as General Tso’s chicken, don’t exist at the time of this writing. The teriyaki chicken, which my father loves, is not only different from what you might think it is or should be, but also tastes far too mild – though they give you a ridiculous amount of it. The bland, uninspired, and slightly moist chicken katsu– which I was excited to order when they first introduced it– is no better than something you’d nuke in your own microwave from a package you picked up that was discounted and forlorn in your local frozen food aisle, complete with a somewhat soggy breading that dooms the side dish entirely. And frankly, since who decided Chinese American fast food needed chicken katsu, of all things? We want lava-​colored, sugary and sour proteins deep fried to heart-​clogging perfection!
And when the food here is on, it’s not only ON, but it delivers our savage desires perfectly. The orange chicken is crispy, tangy, and meaty. The mushroom chicken clucks with flavor and is surprisingly loaded with vegetables, almost like a mild kung pao chicken– likewise for the mushroom shrimp, which is surprisingly loaded with those delectable little creatures. String bean chicken is what the name sounds like, without frills. Salt and pepper fish is fried to perfection with a hint of spicy Sriracha fire in the batter and glowing a dull radioactive-​red. Broccoli beef is not drowning in a sop of water and is instead savory and bright with crunch. The BBQ pork (or char-​siu) is respectable on good days. Nearly everything is pretty tasty and stuffed to maximum capacity in your box of caloric delights.
So whether you want to reminisce about days gone by or you just want to be stuffed by a meal large enough to supply rations to General Tso’s entire army, Chinatown Express delivers and looks as if it will be here to stay for quite some time.