Golden Dragon

I visited Golden Dragon yesterday, 4/27/22, for their lunch buffet. I had been a regular customer of the restaurant for about a year, and it was the best Chinese food I had found in Athens! Yesterday; however, my group went to the buffet and put a little of everything on our plates at once. One of those things just so happened to be a dessert, which we noticed was growing mold. We were obviously grossed out by this and told the server immediately. She went and spoke to the manager who was quick to say we could pay half price; however, we had only taken mere bites of food before noticing the mold. We lost our appetites, so when the server left after telling us we could pay half price, we walked up to the checkout, where I informed him we were the group who found mold and that we had not hardly ate his food. We didn’t feel we should have to pay for food that was growing mold and food we took just a few bites from, so I politely explained our perspective. A man, presumably the owner, then began to raise his voice at me. He was insisting there was no way we didn’t eat our meals because dessert comes last, but I explained we took a little of everything. He rudely told me to be quiet while pointing his finger at me. He proceeded to ask the other members of the group if they ate, to which they replied no. After a few minutes of bantering, he told us to just go. He was extremely rude and condescending and also did not seem to take the mold incident seriously. Please be careful if you choose to eat here! I will never give him my business again because of how condescending and unprofessional he was. Extremely disappointed!

In one word, fantastic! Fair warning, we picked the food up and did not eat inside so I can’t talk about the inside other than what I saw when I walked in. The food was freaking great! We got the sweet and sour chicken and the vegi lo mein. Can’t say enough about how good it was and the amount of food for the money. If you’re in the edge about trying it out, don’t be worried. Just get in your car and go. I promise it’ll be worth it. I most definitely plan on going back!

Your typical neighborhood Chinese restaurant. It has my favorite attributes of any local Chinese place 1) cheap food 2) super quick service 3) lots of Chinese American decor 4) fried wontons These fried wontons were the best I’ve had yet, crispy, light, and toasty. They didn’t have the layer of oil that comes on some of them and were very crunchy. My partner got the hot tea which was different from any other place too, this one was very floral with lavender and camomile flavors. I’m not a fan of either of those but he loved it! My only complaint would be about the egg roll, it was plain in flavor and didn’t have many aromatics such as carrots, green onion, or garlic. Everything else we ate we enjoyed thoroughly!

The egg rolls were the only okay part of this meal. My egg drop soup was water and looks like dirty dish water. The fried rice was basically white rice with almost no soy sauce. The beef was okay but the chicken was inedible because it was undercooked and chewy. I am incredibly upset that I was charged so much for such awful food. I will not be going back to this restaurant.

The ONLY restaurant open Christmas day and they were SLAMMED! They were taking to go orders and taking customers at the buffet. Everyone was nice, my to go order was 100% correct, (it did take a long time--to be expected under the circumstances) and the food was good! Highly recommended! Please support this local small business. They deserve it! Cheers!