Tsou’s Place

I ordered takeout from this place for the 1^st time on New Years day. Here are my opinions…
PROS:
— Very friendly owners, love to talk & laugh
— Super clean inside. About 4 – 6 tables for dine-​in making it a cozy place
— Abundance of fortune cookies. Eight fortune cookies for a 3 person order. Double the fortune!!!
— Food was ready in about 15 minutes. Fast preparation for $ 40 worth of food
CONS:
— Small portions. Higher prices than most take-​outs. I usually always have chinese leftovers, but not this time
— Egg rolls are small & bland. No better than frozen ones you buy at the supermarket. I believe they were $ 1.50 a piece
— Crab rangoon had hardly any cream cheese filling in it & (surprise) were small in size. The red pineapple dipping sauce was good though. $ 6 for an 8-​piece order if I remember
— General Tso’s spicy chicken was hardly spicy. The peppers were left whole when cooked which could have been the reason. Need to cut those babies up & let the juices out!!!
— Egg foo young were small patties that came with very thin tasteless brown gravy. Usually when i order the egg foo, the gravy is thick & congeals somewhat as it gets cooler. With this gravy, there was no congealing in sight. Hmmm, congealing… is that even a word?!? Ha
Overall, I don’t think i will be back to Tsou’s Place anytime soon. For the price, the food & portions were lackluster and kind of a let down. I feel bad because I had a great conversation with the owners while waiting for the food and really wanted to give a good review, but I must give my honest opinions. Thank you for reading!

Second time here and we tried the generals and Mongolian chicken again.
Generals was very spicy but very little sauce and I just can’t get past the big chunks of celery and carrots.
Mongolian chicken had great flavor but even less sauce than the generals and it had noodles underneath that can only be described as recycled packing peanuts. The flavor and texture detract from an otherwise good dish.
Portion sizes for full dinners were very small. Usually we have left overs when we order two dinners but not here.
Owners are super friendly and the fortune cookies were fresh.
We did stay away from the fried apps this time.

We read the other reviews and decided to try the restaurant it was just not worth our time or money the food was very poor hot and sour soup was very peppery the egg roll was like brown inside capri the keg world was like brown inside the Szechuan beef was 4 pieces of beef and some peppers we will not return

I sadly write this review. Why? Because I wanted to LOVE this place. But unfortunately I didn’t.
After reading all the great reviews the family and I decided to stop by. Being familiar with authentic Asian food, we thought we’d try it out. Authentic? Nope. Not even close. Neither was it flavorful. More like flavorless. Bland.
Let’s go down the list.
Egg drop soup: egg and water. Totally bland.
Hot and sour soup: tasted like the egg drop soup with lots of black pepper.
Beef lo mein: barely any noodles, lots of vegetables, no flavor other than the actual mix of viggies.
Szechwan shrimp: this was actually ok, but it was not Szechwan shrimp. I’ve never had anything like this before. But it was the best dish we ordered.
General tsou chicken: also, not much flavor. A little too much batter on the chicken.
Mongolian beef: again, bland. Small pieces of beef scattered over rice noddles.
The plates were also not very generous, especially for the price.
Let’s get to the service. The couple that owned the place are super awesome! Very nice, friendly and welcoming. Always checking if we need anything.
The restaurant itself was small. Seats a total of maybe 26 people? The kitchen is almost as big as the dining area. The good thing about that though is you can see everything going on in the kitchen, including how clean it was. Which brings me to my final review. The restaurant was very clean. Bathroom was clean. Seats and tables were clean. But we were also the only ones there.
I probably would not come back here again. The food was just bland. $ 60 for the above and we all left kinda full and not very content.

Giving them two stars because the owners were nice enough people, but the food is bland and not good at all. I am from Monroe and I can tell you that the China Gate looked abandoned even when it was open. Not sure what everyone sees in the other reviews but sub par Chinese food.

Best Chinese food in the area! I can eat it several times a week and never get bored with it. Mongolian beef if is incredibly tender and General Tso’s chicken stays crispy through the entire meal. Definitely recommended!

This is the best Chinese food, hands down. These are the same good folks that ran China Gate in Monroe. Do yourself a big favor and give this mom & pop restaurant a try.

We were very happy with the service & food! Sizzling rice soup and Egg drop soup were very good and were clear unlike other restaurants. I assume the soups were home-​made and need to ask on the next trip. Home-​made duck sauce was a bonus for the egg rolls! I was a bit surprised they didn’t offer brown rice but the white rice works.
Our kids liked the crispy noodles which looked very similar to rice krispies check out the pictures.
Yes, these owners did own the China Gate in Monroe and a few of us locals remember that place in Monroe, MI. Can’t believe it has been closed for 2 years. While waiting for our take-​out a couple from Dundee, MI were there and claim that this is the only place they eat chinese food.

Good news if you were a fan of Monroe Michigan’s China Gate! The couple that ran that long-​running and sadly-​missed institution have opened a new restaurant, this time a little ways south, in Temperance. They just opened, and are still decorating the place, and it can be a little easy to miss, from the street, as they don’t have any big signage yet, but you need to check the place out, if you like good Mandarin and Szechuan style Chinese food!
Since the menu’s similar to the China Gate days, I’ve re-​posted part of my review of the old restaurant, below, albeit tweaked a bit:
If you are sick and tired of all the greasy, deep-​fried BS that you usually find in southeast Michigan, I would recommend Tsou’s Place.
Now, I’ve gotten a little jaded on food, after living in California for the last several years, so maybe I’m being too tough on the rest of the food around here, but it is such a nice change of pace to eat at Tsou’s. The food is made with a lot higher grade ingredients than most Chinese food you’ll find around here, and it super yummy. My favorite meal is an appetizer of sizzling rice soup (it’s legendary), followed by the Tsou’s Special Lo Mein — a delicious mix of various veggies, meats, and noodles that will gang bang your taste buds and leave you wanting more.
The woman who is the main (only?) server is always very nice and pleasant are always remembers what my family and I wants. It’s nice to have a server who remembers you. Her husband, the cook, is also super friendly.
Btw, when I added this business to Unilocal,I noted that it is a Chinese restaurant (specializing in Mandarin and Szechuan styles). They also serve a small bit of Korean food. For some reason, it’s listed solely as a Korean place, but don’t go there expecting bulgogi or bibimbap. It’s predominantly a Chinese restaurant. It won’t let me change the category now, so hopefully a Unilocal person will respond to my request.
Anyway, stop on in and give them a try! You will be pleased :-)