Kim's Garden

This was surprising.I rarely go to Chinese restaurants because 95% seem to use the exact same prepackaged tv-dinner 'recipes'. Im a pretty good polycook and I'm married to a beautiful authentic Hunan farm girl - so no big deal. That said, I've lived China for years and eaten enough 'authentic Chinese' food for a life time as far as I'm considered (two exceptions - I could eat 北京烤鸭Beijing Roast Duck and 兰州拉面Lanzhou Pulled-Noodles & beef bone soup everyday) so I appreciate the concept of Americanized Chinese food in theory. Authentic Chinese food typically requires a certain dedication and ritualistic effort to consume. So if you dont enjoy chinging around bones big and small, chonging through tendons/soft-bones (YUM), gristle, rubbery flesh and pick-pick-picking around various inedible intermixed whole spices, youre gonna have a bad time.Emperors Kitchen in Brookfield has always been my go to for great delicious Chinese-with-American-Characteristics cuisine but I just moved back to Wisconsin and it's not very close.So being too lazy to cook last night I figured I would give one of the nearer by places a try. Golden Gate or Kim's Garden. Kim's was closest but has some awful reviews here on yelp. Not being one to believe everything I read on the internet, I sometimes throw caution to the wind and take a chance - with varying results. The photos of the food though looked promising. The sesame chicken DID NOT resemble the typical TV dinner style chicken nuggets slathered in super sweet sesame flavored syrup with broccoli you can expect from 95% of Chinese restaurants, so I was intrigued. It actually looked, dare I say, similar to Emperors Kitchen sesame chicken which is phenomenal. F-it, I put together an online order for Sesame Chicken, Hoisin Beef, and Singapore Noodles. I almost bailed and went to Golden Gate when I saw that a 15% tip was automatically added to CARRYOUT (stop that guys) but then noticed that I could easily disable it. T - 35 minutes until impending disappointment. Went to pick up. Food was ready right on time. The inside of the restaurant actually had a pretty cool ambiance, though they are not currently open for dine-in for some reason.I tried the Singapore Noodles first, since I figured these the least likely to screw up. They were actually pretty delicious and gave me courage to break into the sesame chicken. Which ....was AMAZING. Really. Very similar to Emperors Kitchen's unique style, but notably less sweet which I don't mind. Missing the smokey hints of bacon grease that are detectable in Emperor's version, which I kind of consider cheating even though lets face it - bacon grease makes everything taste better. The Hoisin beef was also very good and I can't complain. Beef was nice and tender. I am thoroughly puzzled with what is going on here with all the bad reviews. Staff turnover maybe producing inconsistent results? Hostile competing Chinese restaurant seeding negative reviews(many of the one-two star reviews have suspiciously low or zero other activity on yelp)? failure to pay the yelp tax? All I can say is I will be back for sure. Do not change a thing(well a bit more rice wouldve been nice). Keep the current chef happy. I look forward to trying more of the menu!(Now just to find a Thai restaurant nearby that is anything close to the excellence of Singh Ha in Stallis. Yeah right! Not even the restaurants in Thailand I've been to can compete - so I will continue pick up the legendary Singh Ha Cashew Delight when I am in the area and hone my own mediocre copycat recipe when Im not)

I don't want to mislead anyone here so I must tell you all that once again I got the chicken fried rice and it was very dry. Chicken tasted like cleaning solution and very tough. I could see they'd used leftover scraps from making other chicken dishes. I called them and the guy who answered asked for my name and acted irritated with me. He just said, "ok, I'll tell her" and hung up on me. Don't expect refunds for food that's not edible or anything like that.Apparently they don't stand behind their food.I'm going to stick with Golden Gate Chinese restaurant from now on.I've had too many bad dishes from Kim's.

Heard good things about this place.Tried them tonight. Veggie Spring Rolls heavy garlic and frozen in middle.Hong Sue chicken was overcooked and hard. Egg drop soup was excellent. Rice was perfectly cooked.

Second time ordering from this place and both times were pretty bad. About a year ago I was serve dry inedible chicken and the portions were way too small for the price. I was serve a small portions but charged for large portions. Since that happened it took me a whole year to give them a try again and I came across completely different issues now. I would change my one star review to a five star if they actually tweaked their recipes. Let me start off by saying the rice is authentic, it's not the plastic rubbery rice that most Chinese restaurants serve, it's legit real rice, and it's made the old fashioned way using bean sprout, scallion, and egg. Bravo for that. It was almost perfect! But whatever oil they use to cook that in it's like glue in my food. And when I stir the rice around I see stringy glue-like fibers. The oil is thick and gross they need to find a different oil to use for their fried rice. And that's the only thing stopping the fried rice from being a five-star dish. Now moving on to the sesame chicken. The sesame chicken has the potential of being perfect but they would need to change two things. For starters, the breading on the chicken was completely soggy and falling off! It's very unappetizing. But if they could somehow add a type of flour thats more firm to the recipe, that would make all the difference in quality! Lastly when it came to that chicken the sesame sauce was not thick and coating the chicken, it was liquid at the bottom of the to go container. It was pretty gross and because it wasn't thick and didn't stick to the sesame chicken my sesame chicken didn't taste sweet, didn't taste like anything but plain chicken. That was the worst sesame sauce I've ever had in my life. Maybe if they add some flour to the liquid and thicken it up it would hold good on the chicken. I would have to say overall that sesame chicken meal was ruined and gross, but has the potential of improving if they could tweak their recipe. And the slimy glue-like texture from the oil in the fried rice ruined what could have been the best rice dish ever. Please reformulate your ingredients and cooking methods. There's potential here but as is, the food was really disgusting.

Ordered food online for pickup. Order was 25 minutes late and incorrect. I'll go elsewhere next time.

We were greatly disappointed.The egg foo young was meh The quality has gone away down I Is ordered the dish called mei fun. It is a noodle dish that should have barbecued pork shrimp vegetables in a garlic sauce. It had no sauce thin spaghetti noodles with barely anything that was recognizable tiny tiny shrimp. Maybe 7 from a can and as far as the barbecue park, wasn't there? I had a total of maybe 4 pea pods zero flavor

The only reason I gave 2 stars is because of the customer service. They are nice, their food is the king for food poisoning. Do not eat here, the chicken is raw and not good. The sauce was cold and tasted like trash. I'm sorry but it's terrible.

I literally just went here and spent like $80. I did not get my orange chicken and drove 25 minutes to get this food. When I called to ask about it, they hung up on me and said they packed everything and there was nothing they could do. So I paid for an entire entree that I didn't even get. I would never recommend this place to ANYONE. How completely RUDE and ignorant. Zero stars, the only reason I put one star is because the app made me. NEVER EVER GO HERE!!!

We've ordered carry out a few times and have never been disappointed. What happened?????????????Our carry out order of 2 chicken fried rice was inedible it was so salty. Our egg rolls also, way too salty, crab Rangoons were hard as a rock except for tiny inner part our grand-daughter loved--2 bites, all she ate. Sweet & sour chicken, OMG, chicken was so dry it was inedible. We ordered extra for leftovers, everything is in the garbage. Sooooo disappointing!!!!

Not sure if same family is still involved from over 22 yrs ago!! We used to live @ 1325 Garfield when Old English Flowers was on Broadway, next to the post office! Before that spot became 'Let's Roll Tobacco! They had the best food ever!!! Momma & I moved to Az. For 20 yrs & I am now back in Wauk. & just curious if same owners family?? Best food ever!!! Thanks, Thanks Gpa Gorski!!