First China Chinese Restaurant

DYING for their new location to open, but have no idea where it’s going to be. Really wish they would update their site /​deliver a 25,000 cc IV of hot and sour soup to my house STAT.
it took forever to find a great chinese restaurant in austin and i was absolutely heartbroken when this location closed. found out about it the exact same day i found out kyoto closed (tried to go to both places in the same day… re: almost nixed myself that evening).
i need my sesame chicken. i need my egg rolls. i need all of my delicious chinese nom noms and i need them now!

*First China is CLOSED*
First China has been a great family-​run business for the past decade, but they closed down sometime around Christmas.
I hear they are going to open up a new restaurant somewhere else in South Austin though.

This is my regular place to eat Chinese. I order both pick-​up and delivery depending on my mood and how much money I want to spend. Out of all the places in the same vicinity I like their egg rolls best and their egg drop soup which is why I eat here instead of anywhere else. The prices are reasonable and the food is good. Its not a 5-​star restaurant, but I’m really amazed that the rating isn’t higher. People are just stingy with their stars I think so I’m giving it a 5 even though it’s really a 4 so that hopefully when you’re browsing through you’re options you’ll give them a try. I think you’ll be quite happy with what you get for the money.

This is one of my favorite Chinese places in town. The food is great. The staff is amazing. They understand that lunch is a short and are very timely.

It is what it is: good, generic, Americanized Chinese food. It isn’t Austin-​influenced in any way, and it’s not going to surprise your taste buds. It’s going to be exactly what you’re craving if you, like me, grew up outside of Austin and occasionally had Chinese food at a good, generic, Americanized Chinese food restaurant.
Prices aren’t bad –especially with the combo plate.

Date of First Visit: May 1, 2008
I had lunch at First China Restaurant, which shares the same plaza as a UPS Store on South Lamar near Manchaca. They offer a lunch special for a pretty decent bargain, so I figured I’d give them a try. I ordered the cashew chicken lunch special, which also comes with fried rice, an egg roll, a chicken wingette, and wonton soup. It’s amusing when a restaurant tries to throw everything into their specials, including the kitchen sink! The «extras» were really very standard fare, nothing remarkable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the chicken wings, egg rolls, and the soup were prepped elsewhere, frozen, and then thawed and reheated on the premises. They didn’t have the taste of being freshly made.
The cashew chicken was okay, although this dish, too, suffered from the overuse of standard (and heavily chemically preserved) Asian seasonings like oyster sauce. Again, nothing remarkable. The service was fine, but it’s a shame the food I ordered wasn’t that great. It kind of made me wish I had gone to Panda Express instead.

Sesame Chicken, Eggrolls and Won Ton Soup = You are welcome!

Ok, let me start by saying that I was trying to think of a place that I could give a 3 star rating to. The great restaurants are easy, and the terrible ones are at least memorable. This is one of the few restaurants I have in my regular rotation that would fall in the «pretty good» category.
The food is very much the Chinese you would expect if your awareness of Chinese cooking started and ending in the early 80’s. The menu is expansive, but there’s not an enormous amount of variety. There are your usual proteins (chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, and tofu) with essential the same preparations under each section. There are 3 – 4 «spicy» dishes for each protein: the requisite Hunan and Szechuan plus usually a «First China» (brown sauce and jalapenos) and Kung Pao version. The house specialties are on the front page, consisting largely of either combinations (Happy Family) or variations on the «spicy orange peel sauce» theme (sesame, General Tso, etc.).
The food is probably best described as «workmanlike.» It’s tasty but unexceptional, for the most part. There are, however, a few compelling reasons to rate First China above the standard strip mall Chinese. The specials at lunch and the dinner combinations are exceptional values. You can get soup and an egg roll and an entrée for around $ 6 at lunch and less than $ 10 at dinner. This alone makes it worth the stop.
The service is also significantly better than I’ve come to expect from this kind of place. The people are friendly and attentive, and the pacing of the courses is almost invariably spot-​on. Finally, and I’m sure this is a small thing to some folks, but it’s a big deal to me: the won ton soup broth is heavenly. There are few things more sublime to me than a perfectly executed clear chicken broth. This one’s a delight. I find the soup at Pei Wei to be overseasoned and kind of disappointing. This one’s a keeper.

Since moving down from Boston, I have been searching for good chinese food. I think I found my place. This is definitely not the best chinese food I have had in life, but the best chinese food I have had in Austin.
The people that work there are wonderful and very accomodating. The food and prices were great. Pretty much everything we ordered was good. I will definitely be back.

This is my go-​to place when I want some pretty cheap, pretty good American-​style Chinese food. They’ve got all the standards, it’s not too expensive, definitely way better value than Suzi’s and I can get there to pick it up in under 10 minutes which is a huge plus. If you live in south Austin and you’re looking for this kind of meal, First China’s the place to go.
Sometimes I even order and step over to Half Price Books and dig for some vinyl while I’m waiting; a great way to spend 15 – 20 minutes.

The food was unimpressive; bland egg drop soup and real salty lo-​mein, but you get quite a bit of it for the lunch special.

I’m so addicted to these guys! Try the spicy dumplings– MMM! Their delivery is prompt, but watch out for that $ 3 fee. If you live in the neighborhood, just go pick it up. They offer to stock you up on all the condiments, chopsticks and fortune cookies you could ever want. The people that work there are so pleasant.

OK, I am very biased as this is on my regular ‘lunch place’ list, I love this place. The lunch specials that are all around $ 6 are a great deal. Hot, g fresh, quite tasty, portions are very generous, and vebetables are always stir fried just right, steaming hot but crunchy… hmmmmm. Lunch comes with an egg roll and soup, the hot and sour is one of the better ones around. Service is always fast, people here are friendly and very polite.
I usually get either the first china chicken, or first china beef, both are fantastic
Great!!!

I had hunger pangs after a meeting tonight and decided to give First China a ring for some take out. I ordered some shrimp rolls (crispy goodness) and cashew chicken (uh.gloppy?) to test the waters. The food was hot when I picked it up and the owners were very nice.
The free egg roll was a pleasant gesture — that almost bought FC another star (hey, I like free stuff) — although it seemed to be mostly cabbage on the inside. The restaurant itself is very clean and brightly lit — would have made Hemingway comfortable, I guess. Average but I’ll give it another shot and report back to the Greater Unilocal Community on my findings.

I work right down the street and I usually don’t need to phone in my order because it takes less than 10 minutes for my food to come out of the kitchen piping hot. That gives me time to read the Chronicle at the small bar.
The staff is very friendly.
I only go for lunch where they give you an egg roll, lots of fried rice, your choice of soup and a nice entrée portion for 5 – 7 bucks.
This is the only Chinese place I go around ben white.

Of all the crappy Chinese restaurants I patron, this is the crappiest. You can find me here when my money is running low, for crappiest or not, this place is also the cheapest. Lunch specials are like 5 – 6 bucks a pop, though menu prices vary.
Expect to find typical American-​Chinese fare that’s made quickly and in large quantity.
Just be mindful of getting delivery, they charge a 3 buck delivery charge, even if you live a literal hop, skip and jump away. And they charge you extra for using a credit card, which is v. illegal but totally Chinese-​ey, like the Chinese gymnastics team (oooh smack)… am I right?

My laziness drove me to order delivery last night, and First China had just put a menu on my door, so after consulting Unilocal,I decided to branch out.
Honestly, these guys are getting an extra star for my egg roll. While the inside is just average, the outside is my favorite kind, an actual egg roll wrapper and not the thin skin type, but the old school, thick, bubbly, chewy sort. This makes me incredibly happy.
Aside from the egg roll, the service was timely and the order was right. The hot and sour soup wasn’t sour enough for my taste, but everything else about it was good. The sesame chicken was not my favorite. The sauce almost had a tomato-​like flavor and the chicken was too dry.
Still, I’d order from them again, and just forgo the sesame chicken. And if I don’t meet the minimum delivery requirements ($ 15…and it seems they charged me about $ 5 for not meeting that), it’s close enough to run pick up easily.

This is a fairly new name for a fairly well established Chinese restaurant, formerly the China Wok. According to their carry out menu, the name was changed to reflect the change to a new owner/​chef and the expanded menu.
The restaurant is tucked away in a strip shopping center just south of the Old Alligator grill, and was typically clean, and had very pleasant fragrances emanating from the kitchen as lunch specials were being prepared. There were several folks sitting in an elevated lounge area just inside the entrance waiting for take out orders to be prepared.
The hostess at the front desk was polite and friendly, and seated our party of four right away. She had barely stepped away when our server appeared to take our drink orders. They offer all the familiar Chinese dishes in a luncheon combination including soup, egg roll, entre with boiled or fried rice, and fortune cookie for less than six dollars, and the portions are generous enough to have some to take home. The problem is that they taste so good it’s difficult not to just go ahead and stuff it in the tummy!
The chicken fried rice is nicely done, with a delicate flavor that compliments, rather than competes, with the dominate flavor of the entre. The sesame chicken and General Tso’s chicken were delicious, if just a little dry. The eggrolls were very nice, with a thin flaky crust.
The staff was courteous, and refilled glasses before they were half empty. Our party of four had a very nice lunch in an environment that permitted casual conversation in a relatively quiet environment. Don’t tell anyone, (we don’t want it to get overcrowded), but this is a good one. By the way, they accepted our credit card with no problem. That’s good, because I didn’t notice until afterwards that Analisa stated in her review that they only accept cash!

I’m working at home tonight (with intermittent Unilocaling) and went here to get some takeout. This place is very close to my home in Barton Hills.
There wasn’t a single person in the restaurant, but they seem to do a brisk takeout business. The place looked and smelled clean. The lady at the cash register was polite and friendly. I got a huge serving of General Unilocal’s Chicken with fried rice for $ 10. It was good (authentic? Not even close, but I probably wouldn’t like it if it were authentic Chinese) and there’s plenty left over for a second full meal. It’s good enough I’ll put it on my rotation of «places to grab food on the way home» list.

For those in 78 704/​Barton Hills/​South Lamar, First China worked well as my expedient Chinese food staple/​stable when I lived in the area.
People on the phone are both polite and hilarious, and were pretty quick in getting food to me.
What’s best is going to pick up the food, where they have you sit in this brightly lit elevated lounge area with newspapers everywhere.
A pleasant place to wait… smart.