Empire China

Empire China does Cantonese, Hunan and Szechwan cuisine, and does them well ... dine in, take out, and catering. (MasterCard and Visa accepted. Gift certificates available.)The restaurant, on the main floor of what used to be the Ly-Kan Hotel, is closed Mondays. Regular menu business hours are: Lunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner, 3 p.m. to 9 p.m (10 p.m. on Friday).; and Buffet hours are from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. What the restaurant lacks in decor and atmosphere, it more than makes up for with scrumptious food and excellent service.The buffet features a very wide variety of dishes ... enough that even a picky eater like me can find plenty to eat!The lunch special menu lists 33 choices, including 14 hot and spicy dishes that can be modified to your taste. These selections (various pork, chicken, beef, and shrimp dishes, plus two or three vegetable dishes) come with the daily soup, egg roll, and fried rice or steamed rice. Lunch special prices (all prices as of 7/23/2010) range from $5.50 to $5.99.The menu is incredible! Sixteen appetizers, ranging from chicken sticks, to golden fried to-fu, to sliced jelly fish cold plate, and everything in between! (I love the sugar biscuits, and the crab angels.)There are nine kinds of soup! The egg drop soup (excellent!) and the hot and sour soup come in a cup (small) for $1.25, or a bowl (large) for $4.50. Be warned, the large order served five or six members of my family the other night. Other soups range from deluxe vegetable soup at $4.99 to seafood to-fu soup at $5.99. I'm not sure about the size of these servings, so ask your server.Also on offer are a huge variety of pork, poultry, beef, seafood, vegetable, egg fu young, fried rice/chow mein/lo mein, and mu shu dishes.There are 12 happy hour dinner combination specials that cost $7 or $8. These are served from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.Twenty-four chef's specials, served with fried or steamed rice, range from Szechwan Triple to Happy Family at $8.99, to Sizzling Peking Pork Chop Hot Platter at $9.99, to West Lake Duck at $10.99, to Seafood in Birds Nest at $11.99, to Whole Fried Fish Cantonese Style at $15.99, and Snow Crab Leg Combination Plate at $19.99. And 17 more choices in between!Family dinners are available for $9.50 per person or $12.50 per person (a minimum of two people).For those who aren't crazy about Chinese food, there are side orders that include: French fries, onion rings, hashbrowns, plain fried rice or steamed rice ($1.25 each); vegetable salad, or two eggs ($1.50); chicken nuggets, cheese sticks, bacon strips, or plain noodles (each $2.75).Everything my family of eight ordered the other night was excellent, and portions were large enough to share without leaving anyone hungry.Just a note: If you order the Chinese hot tea, it is made with loose tea unless you request the powdered teabag, so there will be little floaty bits in your cup. (You get a whole teapot full of tea.)Service was flawless. Special requests were honored with a smile.The main reason I didn't give Empire China the fifth star, is that the dishes served often didn't look anything like the photo on the menu. For example, I ordered the lemon chicken, which was pictured as two sliced, plain, cooked chicken breasts (unbreaded, unbattered), garnished with broccoli and about half a lemon, with lemon sauce on the side., What I got was a lot of small to medium-sized, battered, fried chicken pieces, swimming in lemon sauce, garnished with four pieces of broccoli and a couple slices of lemon. Very tasty, but not at all what I was expecting, and I spent a lot of time peeling the fried coating off the chicken to avoid the extra calories, etc.If you're in the central part of Kansas and get a craving for Chinese, head for Lyons, and Empire China. You'll be glad you did!

UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP Empire China was a welcome addition to Lyons, Kansas when it first opened. The food was always good and the space was adequate. However, some friends of the former owners moved from New York and bought the place. I think the food is even better. The buffet has been expanded, both in size and in selection. The food was all very tasty, but with more variety. They've added some sushi as well, a nice little extra in my opinion. AND, they are now open on Mondays. The price for the lunch buffet remains very reasonable. I think you'll like the new Empire China.

Great Chinese their egg drop soup is some of the best I've tried. I've had the buffet and ordered off the menu both are tasty and delicious. The place is now called yummy yummy Asian cuisine and it's very well named keep up the good work and as an added bonus the staff is friendly and quick to help.

The only reason I'm giving this restaurant 4 stars is because of the location and outdated look. We loved everything else. The food was amazing and fast. The service was also wonderful. Definitely a new family favorite.

Very good. Very reasonably priced. Very fast pick up. Enjoyed this much more than the places in Wichita.

i have lived in Lyons for about two years after moving here from a large town in Colorado that had no end in sight of choices for stellar oriental food. one thing you;ll notice about Lyons is its severe lack of choice its either fast food or empire china restaurant. now as I've had some very very good chinese food before i can honestly say that empire china is for me rated right up there with the best. thier buffet isnt huge but itll get you fed and for a comparable price. and if you order off the menu you wont be disapointed at all. my favorite is the curry chicken and a close second is the sesame chicken.they will amp up or tone down to taste.the restaurant doesnt look like much from the outside or really from the inside either but the food more than makes up for anything the scenery is lacking. the wait staff are very freindly and good at what they do.