Golden City Restaurant Part 1 of 3 - Lunch

*** As of July, 2006 Golden City is under new Ownership - posts on the "New" Golden City, can be found here and here.

When we initially moved to San Diego, one of our favorite "budget" Chinese Restaurants was Golden City. They had pretty decent food and a great lunch and late "supper" menu, with great prices. We were a bit sad when they closed down, though we were told that they would probably re-open in the future. So back in July I was very happy to see that Golden City was set to re-open in a new location. On Sept 26th, Golden City re-opened, at it just so happened that I was on vacation that Monday, so it was pretty much a no-brainer!

As I entered the Restaurant at 1110am, I noticed how large and bright the restaurant was, a big change from it's former incarnation, which was kind of "divey". I also noticed that I was probably the first customer! I was handed two menus, a "regular" menu, and a "lunch specials" menu. Going through the lunch menu, I noticed that many of the items we used to enjoy like Kwai Fei Chicken and Roast Duck were no longer offered as lunch specials, and that the Beef Chow Fun was now a whopping 7 bucks on the lunch special menu. The one item that was still on the lunch menu was the Pork Chop with Spicy Salt ($5.95); so this is what I ordered.

The lunch came with a choice of Hot & Sour or Egg Drop Soup. I chose the Hot & Sour soup:

This was a good start. I'd always enjoyed the Hot & Sour Soup at Golden City, this version is a nicely balanced salty, sour, and "pepper" hot.

My Pork Chop arrived soon after. I had a slight laugh as it was put in front of me. I guess Golden City is now using the "large plate illusion." That is, food is delivered on a very large platter, with the food spread out making it look like a huge amount. The lunch came with an Egg Roll(lousy), and a small salad with an Asian Dressing (forgettable).

As for the Pork Chop:

I guess you pay the price for bring the "first" customer. Though the pork chop looked a nice brown, and there was some garlic and scallions on the pork chop. The meat was not cooked at a hot enough temperature, causing the coating to be soggy and the meat tough. The batter was also falling off the pork chop and the garlic was burnt, not exactly an auspicious start. It also took me about 15 minutes to get my check, no one could figure out what my table number was, but it's not like there were tons of customers in the place, go figure!

At this point in time Golden City really needed to get it's act together, so I decided to visit again in a few weeks to see how they progressed, though not at lunch. The lunch menu is targeted at the "local" businesses with items like Orange Chicken, Egg Foo Young, and such. Which is probably for the best, in it's former life Golden City seemed to have no real identity, first serving Dim Sum, then doing Chinese BBQ and Special Menus, finally ending up with a terrible lunch buffet.

Some notes on Golden City; I've always had good service here, and many of the same Employees have been retained. There is a "supper" menu that is served from 9pm to midnight, and has many of our "familiar" dishes.

So can Golden City put it together? Find out in Parts 2 and 3, coming soon!

Golden City Restaurant
5375 Kearny Villa Rd.
San Diego, CA 92123

Open Daily 11am - Midnight

Comments

[mealcentric]

get it together or get packing...

[santos.]

when i saw this was to be a multi-part posts my first reaction was "wow, how big is this meal? how much can kirk pack in in one sitting?!" i'm glad to see it's a several meal assessment!

[Kirk]

Hi Mealcentric - Man you're tough!

Hi Santos - So that's what it's come to, huh? To see what I can digest? LOL! Sorry to disappoint! But I once ate a Fressor......

[Rachel]

Hi kirk! I've been away but glad to be able to catch up on all your happenings. I love hot and sour soup. We can get knorr brand powdered "just add and egg" kind in the asian supermarts here and i love the extra spicy kind. Have you ever tried that? That pork chop looked very lacking but glad it wasn't all that expensive. Can't wait to see aht part 2 and 3 brings ;)

[milgwimper]

Kirk,

Hot and Sour soup is one of my favourite soups. When ,ade well I will eat it to the last molecule! Yum Yum. I can't wait for your next post.

[elmomonster]

Kirk,

Can't wait to see what unfolds in Part 2 and 3. I wonder if it will turn out like mealcentric's recent Memphis review, where it started as bad experience and ended well.

[Kirk]

Hi Rachel - Welcome back, hope you're doing well. Hot & Sour soup is so easy to make I just make it from scratch - didn't know that Knorr had an instant brand, that is kinda interesting. Golden City used to be known for inexpensive Chinese food.

Hi Mills - The Hot and Sour soup was the best thing about the dish, it was perfectly balanced.

Hi Elmo - Stay Tuned!!! :o0

[Green Turtle]

I went by there this past Sat at around 12:30pm. The place was empty, no customers. It looks like they do need to get their act together, or at least offer a better lunch menu on the weekends. I was disappointed to see the prices go up so much compared to when they were at their Convoy St location. The old location did alot of good weekend business with their dim sum. They really need to entice customers to come back on weekends, especially since their new location is "off the beaten path". Now if they offered Sam Woo prices and selection, that place would be packed. So after deciding not to go into a completely empty restaurant, I went to the little taco shop (Gallegos) in the same strip mall and got a delicious huge carnitas burrito for $3.25 which included free salsa and chips.

[Kirk]

Hi Green Turtle - You're right, to me the death-knell of the old Golden City sounded when they stopped serving Dim Sum & went with that lousy Buffet. It now looks like their more set to the Mon-Fri lunch business.