China Lee

I went there for dinner and had the Chow Mein Noodles, Spicy Orange Chicken, and the BBQ chicken leg. The noodles and Orange Chicken seemed alright but the BBQ chicken leg seemed over-​cooked, dry and with no flavor. An hour later I got the runs and nausea. I don’t want to blame the food but since that’s the last thing I ate before I got sick I believe it is most likely what did it. It was around 7pm so its possible that the food was sitting there all day. The server woman was nice and in a cheerful mood. I paid over $ 7 for my two item combo, which I thought was over-​priced, but I was hungry and she had already served me so I bought it. Maybe if I would have gone during the day the food would have been more fresh and this incident wouldn’t have happened, but I was hungry at 7pm. The food is Chinese by the way, not Thai.

I’m still grossed out when I think of this place.

Now this place, serves up some nasty ass chicken! I saw this great write up about the chicken wings online so today I go and order some.. First glance, over flowing box of yummy chicken. I pick one up, take a bite– ICE COLD! I go in to tell the lady that they were cold, that I’d read this great review about the wings and happened to be in the area and would even pay a few extra for fresh wings. She takes them to the back, comes back a few minutes later with what I think were the same exact wings that I’d given her and tried to push them on me. I was just like, if they aren’t fresh, I’d rather just get a refund. Touch them and they were the Same cold ass wings! I asked for the refund and she had the audacity to say. They’re actually pretty good when they’re hot! I shot back, but they’re HELLA nasty when they’re cold! Promptly collected my money and exited the building! Never eat at this shady place! It wasn’t even late enough where they couldn’t of made some fresh wings! (545pm) Then the nerve of them tying to insult me by giving me back the same cold wings!!! NEGATIVE STAR! Not even if they was handing them out for free!

Hands down the best wings in L.A. The owner is super friendly, super nice and the service was fantastic. But oh, those wings! I will travel far and wide just to come here for those tasty treats! The rest of the food is basic and cheap (the way it is supposed to be) Chinese food. But I do not come here for that! My only tweak: the 50 cent surcharge for using a credit/​debit card — a practice that seems to be rampant in L.A.‘s immigrant business community. Also be sure to ask to them go light on the ice, otherwise you will have more ice than drink, and refills are not free.

Tons of unidentifiable food. Here’s the prob: why do they take it from the supposed heated buffet to the microwave. Health dept alert. But I’m alive and not sure what I ate. At noon on Friday I was the only diner. Hmmm.

Ok I really don care how Americanized they say this place is the fact of the matter is. ITS GOOD cheap delivery ! Ordered it today and the food came within 20min. It was hot and fresh tasting. And they threw in some fried shrimp (heads still on) service was great. No complaints about anything. good food for 3 – 4 people at 20 bucks. You have yourself a regular :)

If I went to China, I would have no problem with this, so to all you haters, I give you a big, get over yourselves. I was hungry. This place is so fun and the lady was SUPER NICE. I received a huge plate of food for $ 6 flat. Nobody will bug you and you can just eat your food in peace. I like it.

My husband used to come here when he was younger and the quality was much better. The place was always half packed and they were always trying to keep up the orders. Now it seems that the place has been ran down. There was only one cook in the back when it used to be six. We gave this place two tries before we wrote the review. Each time there was only another person in the entire restaurant eating with us. Both times the food wasn’t fresh and it felt as though it had been sitting there for a while. The second time, my husband and I could not finish our plate. We ended up throwing away 2/​3s of it. Pretty soon China Lee will only be a memory.

Food tasted very very old. The lady used the microwave in front of me to warm up the food? Overall, Bad experience. Most likely won’t return.

This is by far my absolute worst Chinese food experience. After selecting what I wanted, it was placed in a microwave. How long has the food been sitting there under the heat lamp? I had the food to go. When I got home the orange chicken was hardly edible. I went to grab a napkin and it had the distinct odor of roach spray. Not a good sign. The rice was overdone. All in all it was not pleasant and I will not be returning.

— Don’t Believe The Haters —
This place is exactly what it seems. Fast food Chinese. It never claims to be restaurant style or gormet, so all the low rated reviews are from very ignorant people. I eat here maybe twice a month because it is near my house, the portions are gigantic and the prices are low. I will have A $ 6, two item meal For lunch, and have enough left for dinner… This is fast food… The quality is fair. I personally enjoy the orange chicken and chow mein. Most of all. The ladies that work here are always very sweet and pleasant. They may never actually remember me, but they work hard to make me think that they do. These are hard working people in a decent establishment. They deserve your support.

China Lee is located in the plaza right by the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. My group and I were waiting in line to see the National and wanted to grab a bite beforehand and this was the closest place that is walking distance.
The A-​Rating made us feel more comfortable since the place looks a little old and run down… but the interior is clean… OLD but clean.
As for the food, the food is very generic Americanized Chinese food. Nothing authentic here, but the prices are great and the serving size is even greater! We ordered the Kung Pao Shrimp and they do not skimp out on shrimp at all. There was so much shrimp that we couldn’t finish it. For Americanized Chinese food, it was pretty good.
Service was excellent! The Asian lady at the register spoke Mandarin, Taiwanese and Spanish. fluently! Very impressive.

I’m eating the food as we speak because I’m starving and have to work. This food is nearly inedible. Mysterious chunks everywhere., Poor flavor, The food seem like it has been under a heat lamp for LITERALLY 3 days.
Completely disgusting. 1 Star because the woman behind the counter who I think was the owner was very nice and sweet.
Do Not eat here. Gross. I will not be surprised at all if I get food poisoning within the next few hours. Just as I wrote that I got a cramp in my stomach. I’m not kidding.

DO NOT EAT HERE… This place is horrible! Just do yourself a favor and don’t even bother eating here. Seriously just disgusting food.

I’d say it’s at least as good as Panda, whatever that means to you, and probably a bigger assortment, but it’s your average fast food Chinese. Plenty of seating, and fairly friendly counter staff. I’d go back for when I get that greasy fast food hankering. There’s strip mall parking outside for this and the other businesses in the strip mall.

DO NOT EAT HERE!!!
I went in with my family got 3 combinations to go and a wanton soup for myself to go. After a long day at the beach we got home to enjoy our dinner. I opened my soup and let it sit for a while to cool down, i kept seeing a lot of little black dots on my soup, I told my dad my soup has bugs and he said nah its just the spices, so i continued to eat. As i kept digging the little back floatty thing kept getting bigger so i pulled one out and observed closely and i could of sworned it had legs. So my mom took a look at it and she said ’ it looks like fleas’. As i kept stirring my food all these fleas came up to the surface of my soup. I looked at the lid and like approximately 15 fleas were stuck to the lid. I made everyone including the kids stop eating and I drove back to return the food. I politely pulled the lady aside and I told here quietly «there is fleas in my food», I opened the soup and i showed her, she rushed to the back and started yelling at the cook. She then told me ‘oh you know the fleas hide in the broccolli’, I was SSSSOOOOO disgusted. She gave me my money back which was about $ 20. I didnt care about the money, what I cared about was that she admited to having these fleas in her food.
I had my two young children eating the beef and broccoli.
I AM NEVER EATING AGAIN AT THIS PLACE.
Having fleas leads to having rats running around the food in the back.

I was seriously jonesing for some good ‘ol Americanized Chinese food. After reading the previous reviews, this seemed like a good spot for that. So I ventured out (OK, it was on my way home from work) and got the 2 entrée combo.
I ordered the orange chicken (a little too sweet for my tastes) and the kung pao chicken. There were chiles in the mix, but the entrée was not even a little bit spicey, but still tasty!
The best part, you can get fried rice AND chow mein! I’ve never had that happen, it’s always been an either/​or thing. Both were pretty yummy too!
All for $ 5.99 (+ a $.50 credit card fee, no biggie) a good deal for some greasy-​heat-​lamp-​american-​chinese food!

Yes, another reviewer summed it up pretty well with the «different types of Chinese restaurants» definition. If you want greasy, American-​Chinese food, hot and fresh from the heat lamp, China Lee is a good place to go. This is not a bad thing! This is definitely not fine Chinese dining, but China Lee knows what they are and they do it well. Sometimes you WANT a styrofoam container of chow mein, orange chicken, and fried rice. And if that’s what you want, this is the place to go. Huge portions, super cheap, and it hits the spot if the spot you want to hit is greasy goodness. Yum yum. And it’s not too much of a belly bomb b/​c I ate this at midnight before waking up at 4am to get on a 5 hour flight. No digestion problems to speak of. That’s saying a lot. Maybe it’s a little sketch, but the girl at the counter was sweet, and she piled on the fried rice. Thank you, China Lee.

There are different types of Chinese restaurants, and I don’t mean like Szechuan versus Hong Kong or even dumpling houses and places that specialize in roast duck.
There are the places that make every effort to try and replicate, or act like they replicate, lovingly cooked and jealously guarded recipes from places you can’t even pronounce, let alone find on a map.
Then there are places that make no attempt at authenticity. They are what they are, American-​Chinese food, in the sense that it is Chinese food as interpreted by America.
That’s a not a bad thing, actually, sometimes I’m in the mood for steam tables and yellow fried rice, and China Lee is fantastic for that.
I’m a white rice guy, so that’s what I usually do here, and then go for the two entrée combo.
They do a respectable black bean pork (sometimes it’s beef). While not quite like mom used to make it does help assuage feelings of being homesick. There are big meaty pieces, and the occasional little circle of cartilage that I swoon over.
Can a guy swoon?
Their char sui is also surprisingly good. Not the best, but miles above similar places, with both flavor and moistness even if they sit under the heat lamps for a few hours. Again, the rip tips are laden with cartilage, which is always, always, always a good thing.
Be careful with some of the dishes, especially any involving chicken on the bone. The chicken curry is prone to having little pieces of bone throughout due to haphazard chopping.
Not a big deal if you grew up eating steamed fish at Chinese restaurants, but this isn’t steamed fish, and for me not worth the effort.
The dumplings are about what you’d expect, a little overcooked, but serviceable in a pinch (or during a drinking binge), and the fried chicken wings, if fresh, are actually really good. Crispy, juicy, with little pieces of spicy pepper embedded in the skin.
If I want authentic, I’ll get my ass to San Gabriel, but if I’m in the mood for authentic-​inauthentic Chinese food, a hangover cure, or food for a long day of watching football, this place is my favorite.

Ended up here by accident. The place looks like an old donut shop with yellow bench seats and all. About two bites into our meal, I think we wanted to throw it out and look for something else. So we ate some, and then had an afternoon snack later. If you like heavily fried Chinese food that all pretty much looks the same, then this is the place to go. We didn’t care for it, but I am giving it two stars because the people were nice and they served large portions (with tons of oil).