Chang Jiang Restaurant

Okay so I was in Madison and if you are absolutely honest, the food choices range from chain restaurants to just bad. How could that be? This is the state capital. It's a college town. There are so many woke, BLM sign, Science matters sign wielding residents, surely they know food. No. They eat bland, garbage.Among that trash heap of culinary adventures is Chang Jiang. A long, long time ago, Madison was blessed with Tom's Red Pepper. Truly great Chinese food reminiscent of a dirty, greasy, Chinese restaurant in Queens. One where you walk in, take a menu from the stack of menus next to the register and you circle what you want. Everything was in pint or quart.We are a long way from Queens and we sadly mourn the void in the Madison food scene that Tom's Red Pepper left. So I took a suggestion and ordered from Chang Jiang. Mistake. I took one for the team. Don't make the same mistake. The fried rice is filled with onion and undercooked broccoli. Peas and carrots round out the holy trinity. Is there a shortage of soy sauce due to the pandemic? I'll save you $7. You have a need for fried rice? Go grab a $1 Michaelina's frozen microwave, chemically derived chicken fried rice from whatever poses as a supermarket in Madison. You will enjoy it more. I think the fake frozen product even has a soy sauce flavor. Oh warning, there is no Sendik's in Madison.Chicken is grisly and undercooked. Egg rolls were a frozen thing, these are not fresh, or maybe they were before Covid.The lo mein is as bad as the version that is pimped out at Noodles.If you are in Madison, well, I'm sorry to hear that, but do what I normally do, grab a pizza in Milwaukee, Brookfield or Chicago and eat it cold when you get to your hotel room.Note to those that are going to attack me on my rebuke of Madison restaurants, Paul's Pel Meini, is not good. It's frozen, boiled, served in a cardboard box slathered in oil. You are better off buying Mrs Ts Pierogis. Bar Corallini is boring. Red is just sushi. Bassett Street Brunch club is gimmicky and really only appeals to the basic white girl from Oconomowac (sp?) who thinks she is so adult as she sips her Mimosa with her sorority sisters all bundled in their Canada Goose. Short Stack was never good or worth the ridiculous lines. It was basically a politically correct iHop. Batch Bakehouse still makes a pretty good croissant. The coffee at Moka is not bad, it's no Anondyne. Madistan is disgusting and anywhere else, would have a B hanging in the window. Himal Chuli and the gaggle of bad Indian restaurants round out the sad, pathetic food scene that is Madison. Apparently George Webb couldn't lower himself enough to bring his pseudo, pathetic diner to Madison.

Food was ok, but both my fiancé and I got sick about 2 hours after eating it, pretty sure it was food poisoning. The yelp online ordering was fast and easy, and delivered earlier than scheduled. Probably won't order from here again,

Call in your order ahead of time if you don't want to wait. For take-out, they certainly take their sweet time. I had no issues with the kung pao chicken I ordered. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the freshness of the vegetable ingredients (green bell peppers and celery), and I liked that the chicken was finely diced. I didn't mind the overload of peanuts either. They are a little pricey for a mediocre take-out restaurant. For the quantity and quality of the food, I was appalled to find that an order of kung pao and general tso's came out to be $16. Plus, the food is about as Americanized as you can get. Thus the 3 stars.

Decent food. Everytime I try for delivery they say they aren't delivering at this time.. but okay.

It's mediocre at best. Service is very disappointing, the person made me stand there while he yelled at people in the other room in another language then started at me while I repeated, I need a pen to sign. Get home to an order that is hot and ok tasting but honestly it looked nothing like the pictures of the food. If the order doesn't look or consist of the same ingredients, the pictures are simply misleading.

Holy inconsistencies, Batman. I had tried Chang Jiang a couple years ago, and was not at all pleased. A couple weeks ago, my brother convinced me to order from CJ. I tried the sesame chicken, and it was delicious. The downside: it took almost two hours to arrive. They had forgotten our order, and only realized it after we called them back after 90 minutes. Apparently their other location was closed for the night, so they were handling all orders out of one restaurant. Unfortunate, but since it was so tasty and a weird circumstance, I overlooked it.Tonight, Christmas Eve, I decided to give them another go. They have a $15 minimum delivery, so I ordered two entrees figuring it'd make me plenty of tasty meals over the holiday weekend when nothing else is open. I ordered the sesame chicken again, and an order of lemon chicken. The food arrived in 30 minutes, but unfortunately it was...Barf city. While the sesame chicken last time consisted of tasty chunks of white meat that kept their crispy coating despite soaking in sauce, this time it was especially fatty dark meat that was hard to cut and had a very displeasing mouth feel. I had expected the lemon chicken to be similar to the sesame chicken or sweet and sour chicken - battered chunks with a gooey sauce. Instead it was a chicken breast pounded flat and breaded with crumbs. The sauce was served on the side, and that's a good thing: it was so lemony and watery it seemed fake. It felt more like I was adding a dose of Lysol to my meal than a burst of citrus goodness. The chicken itself was okay, but really was no better than a cheap patty and not at all what I think of when considering Chinese takeout. If I knew I'd be getting the same delicious batch of food I got a couple weeks ago, I'd go back to Chang Jiang for sure. However, tonight's failure ($22 with tax and tip down the drain - hopefully I can get someone to eat the leftovers so it's not a total waste) will probably prevent me from ordering there again.

We eat here every once and a great while and while the food is edible, I've had better.But what prompted me to write a review is my experience last night. I recently went vegan and ordered the bean curd szechuan style. What I got wasn't bean curd (or regular tofu) but silken tofu instead (which is great for blending in smoothies or as an egg replacement in baked goods, but kind of tastes like snot on its own). Eww. It came with peas and carrots (most likely a frozen mix since the carrots were so consistent) and a ton of sauce. Not to mention we waited close to 90 minutes for delivery at 7pm on a Sunday.

Have frequented this place before and it was ok. Went in to get some egg rolls only as that is all I wanted and the person was very rude. Will not be going back!

I can't wait until we get back to Chicago! So, this place was recommended by one our friends that live here so we thought we'll give it a try. I ordered the sweet and sour chicken.... why is there only ONE PIECE OF PINEAPPLE in what is suppose to be SWEET AND SOUR SAUCE! At least when I go to other Chinese restaurants in Chicago, I get red peppers, onions, and MORE PINEAPPLES! The sauce was pretty good as well as the chicken. My husband enjoyed his food which was good. Wished we checked our food before we left because we ended up sharing rice. We'll have to find another Chinese place when we visit again!

I gave it a star because I "had" to in order to review. I ordered a small chicken fried rice to go for my lunch and when I got there the guy at the cash register was on his phone, didn't noticed me until the chef told him. He had such a hostile voice because I "interrupted" his phone call and said "fried rice!? 5 dollar". And after swiping my card he just turned away and continue yapping on his phone. Not even a "thank you". Not to mention that the fried rice was so damn plain! Not a single carrot, onion or green onion. Just plain rice and chicken and barely a hint of salt or soy sauce. Oh, and he didn't even give me a spoon or fork in the bag! Yea, not going there anymore. Poor service and food was below par.