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Empress Garden
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good for:
- Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol:
- None
13 reviews for Empress Garden
Firstly, this is one of the only Taiwanese owned Taiwanese style restaurants in Chinatown. They've been here for some 20 years which is when many Taiwanese first immigrated to the Philadelphia area. Like most places in Chinatown you really have to know what to order off of the Chinese menu to really know what the restaurant has to offer. You definitely would not come to this place just to eat your typical General Tso's or Sweet and Sour chicken. Their Taiwanese specialties are what makes this place a gem.
My favorites are of course the tradition Taiwanese favorites such as the Taiwanese style Niu Ro Mien (Beef Soup Noodle), San Bei Ji (Three Cup Chicken - pieces of chicken braised in rice wine and garlic and basil), Ru Ro Fan - (Braised Pork Rice), and Xiao Long Bao (Little Dragon Buns - small steamed buns with soup and meat filling inside) just to name a few.
My Taiwanese friends and I come here often to get the taste of Taiwan that we all eventually crave and we're never disappointed!
I just finished eating here for the first time. I read about the raving reviews of their beef noodle soup, and being as a beef noodle soup connoisseur, i had to check it out. So I get to the restaurant, its small like most other chinatown restaurants in philly, but luckily I didnt have to wait to get seated. I ordered the Taiwanese beef noodle soup, (they have another item on the menu that is beef noodle soup with vegetables, which is not what i got ). The bowl that it came in was decently sized, not too big, not too small. The broth was smooth and not too salty. I would have liked more star of anis flavor, but this satisfied my craving nonetheless. The sour lettuce, was a bit much for me, maybe put in half the amount that was given to me. There was also specks of other vegetables like ginger, onion, etc. The noodles themselves were very good, chewy, soft, probably home made although i cant confirm that after only one visit.
Overall i would definitely return to this small joint, and order the same thing. This is one of the better beef noodle soups Ive had and I'm lucky yelp pointed me in the right direction.
Just do some online browsing about this restaurant and found this link (for those who doesn't speak chinese).
http://chowhound.chow....
it turns out that the chinese menu is different from the english menu.
the chicken in hot pot: c55
shredded beef with tofu and bamboo shoot: c49
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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10/12/2009
Love this place. It's my newfound favorite.
First, my Taiwanese friend recommend it to me, then my… Read more »
Stopped by the other night to escape the winter cold with some spicy Beef noodle soup.
Found out that they're BYOB. =) AWESOME
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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1/27/2009
Yeah, this place looks shady, dirty and dingy. But they have THE BEST Taiwanese Spicy Beef Noodle… Read more »
Best place for Taiwanese food in the area, in my opinion. I always stop by for a big bowl of the Taiwanese Beef Noodle soup, and treat myself to a freshly-made, real-fruit mango smoothy (watermelon in the late summers, too!). Their three-meat dishes, Chinese watercress with garlic, and fish dishes are all delicious, and remind me of eating in Taiwan.
However, there are also the generic dishes for those less adventurous or that cannot read the Chinese menus. Also, seating is tight, it's a small, but often busy space! We've also ordered larger dishes for catering (rolls, rice, noodles, and meat dishes), and they were swift, and gave us a discount!
On the window, I read: "Authentic Mandarin and Szechuan" and thought, "why not?" and walked in. It was around noon, and crowded.
Julia, Empress Garden's friendly owner, greeted me. We had a conversation on what was tasty and she ultimately recommended a Taiwanese noodle dish (C71 on the menu) to me, which I ordered to go. I mentioned that I've never been in her restaurant before, so when she said it was 24 years old, I was floored!
My dish of "spicy" (they weren't really spicy), dry Taiwanese noodles set me back $6.75, but kept me fed for hours. It was a generous portion of shredded string beans, salty soybeans, tofu, pepper flakes, pork (meat), bean sprouts, and white noodles. Did I mention it came out right away? Worth a try, stop in!
As a student living far from home, this place hits the spot for me. Granted, I think you should realize that the authenticity of this place depends heavily on what you order. The authentic stuff are the jia jiang mian and the Taiwanese beef broth noodles. I've also had good sauteed vegetable dishes and green onion pancakes here. I recommend the dumplings if you like them big and thick-skinned. (And... that's what she said, eh?) Anyways, my friends and I always come back here for more when we need a cheap pick-me-up that hits close to home!
I recently moved to Philly from upstate New York so I was hoping to find a decent TW restaurant now that I'm in a big city. A friend of mine recommended me this place so I decided to give it a try two weeks ago. I ordered the scallions with beef for take out and found it to be good but not great. Two weeks later my bf came to visit from NYC so I figured I'd take him here since we both love TW food. We ordered the fried dumplings, pork chop w/ rice, and the chinese bean sprouts. The fried dumplings were so greasy that there was a puddle of oil on the plate when we finished it. The pork chop w/ rice was also a disappointment. They went cheap on the meat by giving us four broken pieces rather than a whole pork chop and the meat was way too sweet. They must have put too much sugar or MSG in their marinate. The bean sprouts were passable but no better than any other Chinese place that serves this dish since it doesn't really require any skills. Anyways, this place does NOT compare to the other Empress Garden's they claim to be associated with in TW and I'd rather go to Penang across the street to be on the safe side.
man i guess yelp isn't really big in philly... this place has been here for years and for good reason! it is known for its taiwanese dishes.
come here to order the following:
paigufan - crispy porkchop over rice - very big, comes with a soy sauce egg and sour veges
niu rou mian - beef stew noodles soup
mango shake!
ask the lady for recs she never lets me down!
Lunch special about $5.25, Fried Rice, Sauteed Vegetables and Shrimp. Quite Americanized food. very disappointed. owner is sczchuan provincial refugees from China then moved to Taiwan, then to Philly.
this is the absolute best. i have not been able to find anything remotely close to their taiwan beef noodle stew, and still dream of their fried string beans, scallion pancakes and chicken fried rice, chinese style. i've asked for fried rice chinese style other places and just get weird looks, they very well may be the only place that call it that, but damn, it's delicious. and cheeeeeap!
Small place, cheap, not bad. They have Taiwanese cuisine! beef noodle soup!
We like this place. The ingredients were fresh, dishes were well-prepared and the price was good.
