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8th Ave-42nd St (A, C, E, 1, 2, 3, S, 7, N, Q, R, W)
We ordered in from here to an office meeting. The delivery took about 30 minutes, and was not a long distance away. Some of the people I was with ordered more conservative items such as General Tso's and Fried Rice. I do not recommend ordering take-out or delivery for fried items because the batter that they use does not bond to the food well and just comes right off because of the steam in the container.
They do have spicy items and more authentic vegetables like Gai Lan, which can get a little water when cooked with too much sauce. I recommend their seafood dishes, because their shrimp are huge and snappy, cooked to perfection. The Chow Fun had a strange tangy taste to it and did not have black bean sauce. I asked for XO sauce on the shrimp and got a bland white sauce. I would actually prefer to not have sauce at all instead of white sauce, yuck.
The Pad Thai and tofu dishes are really good. Prices run from $8.00-16.00 for seafood. For the location, it is fairly impressive. I would prefer to just take myself down to Chinatown for half the price and fresher food.
I'll start off by saying that, despite my low-ish rating here, I will likely give them another chance.
It was Thanksgiving and we had just gotten home from a long, long 20+ hour plane trip. What more could we want once returning to that states than some good ol' Chinese take-out. I read a few Yelp reviews and remember seeing someone mention that the pad thai was good. I don't normally order thai food from a chinese place but I had a strange hankering for it so I, against my own instincts, went for it. Bad idea. It really wasn't good at all but it was a HUGE portion. And it was not expensive. The bf got general tso's chicken which, to me, tasted like beef. The steamed vegetable dumplings were okay but it really drives me nuts when people dye them green and they use those kind here. Edamamme was good and the veggie spring rolls were really tasty.
I honestly think that despite the not so great food that time around, that I may feel differently if I actually visit Ollie's and order some traditional Szechuan cuisine. I'll be sure to update the review if/when that happens.
Oh, and speedy delivery...maybe 10-15 minutes from ordering until they were outside my apartment door.
Service was a little slow, but everyone was relatively friendly so I can forgive them. We went when the restaurant was only about half full, so I'm not sure if it would be worse when crowded.
It's solid, satisfying, no-frills Chinese food. It's not going to blow your mind, but you're guaranteed a good meal. I had general tso's chicken that was on par with the best I've had. At our table I also sampled orange chicken, chicken fried rice and general tso's prawns. They were all delicious and pretty cheap. I think the priciest entree we ordered was around $12.
I didn't give it more stars just because I always expect a little more from a sit-down Chinese place, but I've gotten a lot of take-out that was just as good as Ollie's. Maybe I've been ordering from really good places?
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Ordered take-out from here a couple of times and loved the food. So I made a visit to the restaurant. Their steamed flounder was very tasty. Nice decor. Service was ok. The best Chinese rest. in the Times Sq. area!
Great for a quick bite
Was recomended by the Hilton where we were staying
Would go back
We found this joint by chance-- because it was right beside the parking lot we had chosen in the area. After driving through the recent ice storm that swept the Northeast, we were just tired & hungry. There were a lot of people dining and waiting that evening. I expected a long wait so I put in my name and the number in our party. After all, our friends whom we would be meeting were still on their way.
To my surprise, we didn't have to wait that long! The sweet waitress called our party of 6 and sat us immediately. It was a busy place! Nevertheless, they did all right serving us promptly.
There's a lot to order here. Feel like eating julienne jellyfish? How about diced rabbit legs with hot spicy Schezuan peppery sauce? Maybe some "Numbing spicy chicken"? No? Then try their sauteed loofah. Yes, you heard me right. Loofah. It's quite interesting actually.
But we went conservative and ordered General Tso's Chicken (which was pretty good...it's so unlike the ones you order at those claiming to be Number 1...), Tea Smoked Half Duck (I would not recommend...the meat was tough), Sauteed Chinese Broccoli (a great vegetable dish to complement the other dishes) and their salt & pepper pork chop (the best dish that night!)
They serve house tea as you're seated and they provide lots of fresh orange slices when you're done. I know, typical of Chinese restaurants. But hey, some establishments charge you extra for the house tea so I had to mention this.
It's very family friendly and it's certainly a good place to eat with friends.
PS- I picked up their take-out menu and it's made me chuckle. I could use this to test students! How many grammatical & typographical errors can you spot?
And by the way, for those living in the area, they crossed the free in Free Delivery and hand wrote "After 4 pm, surcharge of $1".
This is Ollie's Sichuan Restaurant, much better than the Noodle Shop cousin. We've been a dozen times and keep trying new things. Don't let the 42nd Street location deter you--delicious, spicy food filled with flavor. Waitress was very helpful to warn me how spicy the spicy won tons are when I ordered off the traditional menu.
If you're heading out to Hell's Kitchen this is a good place to put down a base of good food.
It is an upscale Chinese takeout restaurant with high prices. Stick with appetizers and sharing meals. Great date spot, stay away when in groups. Service is slow, but it allows you to enjoy the calm atmosphere.
always order scallion pancakes and avoid the Peking duck, long wait involved.
Ollie's Sichuan Restaurant is a good place to grab some Chinese food if you are in the Times Square area, or over by 12th Ave. for the Circle Line tour or other sightseeing. They offer some unusual choice, including cold jellyfish salad, fish head in clay pot, ox tongue & tripe, diced rabbit legs, frog or pig kidneys w/pickled vegetables, etc. For the less adventurous diner, the usual Chinese dishes, plus a very large selection of soups and noodle dishes.
The service is very quick, your food arrives within minutes of ordering, although the servers are not that attentive to refilling your water glass while you are eating.
Prices are not bad for a NYC restaurant. My wife and I shared three entrees--spicy orange beef (delicious), shredded chicken sautéed with fresh spinach, and pan-fried mei fun noodles with pork, plus two sides of brown rice--and the bill came to $34 plus tax and tip.
Three things:
1. A year-and-a-half ago, Ollie's would have been the recipient of a rating double what it's currently receiving. But after a move from 44th and Broadway to 42nd and 9th, my once-favorite dumpling house turned into my comme ci, comme ca Times Square Chinese option. Management went a little downhill, and the funky old-school decor morphed into Shanghai modern.
2. The vegetable and shrimp dumplings are some of my favorite in the city (and they used to come eight to an order, not six...not that I'm saying anything). If you do take-out, make sure they give you the special dumpling sauce, not just soy.
3. All in all, still a very reasonable pre-theater option. Expect to wait at peak hours. Helps to go with someone of the Asian persuasion.
Ollie's is a nice respite from the office if you work in the Times Square area. If you do work there you know what a barren wasteland it is. Devoid of culture, good manners and common sense Times Square is the pimple on New York's ass. Its the stain on the Mona Lisa. But Ollie's is a welcome oasis of good cuisine in an erstwhile harsh world.
I didn't eat much last night. I have a vegan friend who insists on torturing my roommates and I with her mushy swill. So, after the gym and a salad I came home to some sort of tempe (isn't that in Arizona) paste in a pun and beets that looked like discarded menses. We ate politely but alas, I went home hungry.
So Ollie's it was. I was excited to learn that they had one of my favorite Szechuan dishes, Double Sauteed Pork. My mouth is still tingling and I feel oh so good. There are better places to get this dish. (You would never think it, but Mee on the east side sells a $5 version of this and its out of this fucking world.) But Ollie's is within walking distance, especially now that the weather is breaking and its well worth braving the army of aimless humans wandering around like apes at the monolith in the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Long live Ollie.
don't mistake this for any of the ollie's chain locations. I actually don't know why the owners named this ollie's since it's not an ollie's and the food can't be any different. the ollie's chain is crappy chinese cantonese food, and this ollie's is your sichuan GRANDMA style of cooking. and i know because i grew up there, so beat it!
anyways - i'm a snob when it comes to spicy chinese food from the sichuan area because it's misinterpreted or badly made in most cases outside of china. but at this place, i am completely satisfied. i love the spicy dumplings, double cooked pork, spicy jelly noodles, and the spicy fish stew from this place. you just can't go wrong.
and now that you know, don't let me catch you eating a stupid fried rice at this authentic establishment. =P
Ate here last night, pretty decent food. Way exceeded our expectations, since all of us were like, "Ollie's?" Ollie's is not known to have the most authentic and/or good Chinese food in the city.
Lots of spicy dishes and a pretty friendly waiter who seemed very excited to speak to us in Mandarin even though our Mandarin skills were sort of ghetto. My one complaint is that a lot of the cold appetizers that we ordered were not that cold when they came to our table. Everything in general was pretty tasty and not too oily.
Definitely a good choice for Chinese food if you're in the area, but that's basically because the majority of the restaurants around here are crap. But, that being said, this place is still pretty decent.
I like its "Fish in Hot Oil Pot"- in menu it is called "Fish w veg. in Spicy_Sauce" BEST!!!
I could not stop myself eating them all~~
My second recommendation is Salt & Pepper Pork_Chop. I tried this first time and fell in love with it.
But I don't like "Wonton in Red_Sesame_Oil", which is too much flour instead of meat.
I have submitted their photos onto yelp.
In total, much different from other Ollie's. This is authentic Szechuan in my opinion. The only disadvantage is that it is still too expensive.
have been treated here for a late dinner one time by a friend many years ago; i would always remember the taste (though i can't remember what exactly we had that evening). and there were other times i was here with some group of friends---always consistent great tasting food---just be careful to ask the waiter to go slow with the spices as your order/s may turn out to be too hot LOL.
This is my favorite restaurant in New York. I'm not a big restaurant guy, but I appreciate good food in decent quantities served quickly at reasonable prices, and Ollie's takes care of me.
The best part is the food. I usually go with my girlfriend and we get the sesame chicken (I'm adventurous), which is the best I've had anywhere, along with one or two other dishes which we may or may not have tried before. Everything is always great. From what I can remember on the menu, the double sauteed fish and beef chow fun are also both really good.
Dishes are generally around $10, and a meal for us, with tax and tip, is usually $30 or $40. The service is fast, and even when it's been somewhat crowded we've never had to wait more than 15 minutes for a table.
This location is not quite as good as the one formerly at 44th St and Broadway, which closed maybe six months ago. It's smaller and doesn't have quite the same atmosphere, and, at 9th Avenue, it takes a bit of extra walking to get to. (Although at the old location, we did once sit next to a drunk guy who threw up on himself during the meal. This, so far, has not happened at the 42nd Street location.)
In any event, if we're nearby and in the mood to overeat, Ollie's makes it happen.
Really good Chinese food. My friend and I came her after seeing a play across the street and we were both satisfied. The fried pork chop with garlic and mo shoo chicken were both excellent. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.
My favorite Chinese place in Midtown. Great soups, dumplings, and entrees. The egg rolls are a little too greasy for my tastes though. The atmosphere is so much nicer (more airy and open) then at the original location. Good service.
Just down the block from my brothers house, he loves to drag us to Ollies. This is a great place to eat chinese food and has some pretty authentic items on the menu. My brother always says, I found out about this place from chinese people. The prices aren't that bad either. They have drinks, but seriously, go somewhere else for that, just eat your food!
The steamed dumplings(shrimp, pork and chicken) are great: good proportion of dough to filling. The wontons in hot oil is a favorite of my boyfriend's and I also recommend the pork chop noodle soup, a guilty pleasure where you get a gigantic bowl of large pieces of fried pork chop floating in a very slurpable soup with thin egg noodles. Service is brisk and fast and takeout is available.
I expected Times Square tourist crap and got some good, reasonably priced Chinese food. Scary fast delivery--20 minutes wait max (I'm right across the street, mind you). A great pre/post theater bang for the buck.
This place has pretty good chinese food, I especially like their General Tso's chicken. Much better than a lot of the other chinese places in the area, probably because its not a strictly takeout / delivery type of place. The restaurant itself is pretty nice, I have gone there to eat as well as gotten delivery. They also serve drinks!
we ordered some ollie's the other night at work and it was great. there are some interesting choices on the menu (like pig intestines and kidneys) but they have all the classic american chinese food favorites. as with any other chinese food place i have eaten from, the general tso's needed some hot sauce to make it spicy but other than that the quality of the food was great and we were all pleased at the end of the meal. they also tossed in a bunch of pineapple slices and lychee, but no fortune cookies :(
This restaurant has fun ambience with pictures on the walls of chinese people black-and-whites. It also seems to be frequented by lots of Chinese folk, so I guess they like it. My wife and I thought it was so-so - the chicken fried rice was a little bland, and the chicken was dense. The General Zao's was decent - more chicken, less breading than most places, and good sauce. Prices were good - about $9 for the fried rice, and $12 for the chicken. Overall, a decent, but not spectacular, place to eat.
i came here expecting really bad service, but it wasn't that bad! :)
the food was really good. egg drop soup was pretty good, and the dumplings are good too. i really liked my orange chicken. mongolian beef is a little too greasy for our liking -- it usually is, but a little more so here than in other places.
they can work on the decor because it's nothing special, but all in all, food was good!
The food is OK. But what make this place really suck is the service. The host or maybe the owner greeted me very rudely, "I HAVE NO TABLE FOR YOU NOW!" I didn't mind it I figured this New York! But it got worst. The waitress was also rude. I would go into but I don't want to waste too much of my time writing about them. I really just wanted to let you fellow travelers who wanted a good friendly nice place to eat after hard day at work, that this place is where to avoid!
A place to stop by for a quick bite, don't expect much. Price are cheap, as most of A-okay chinese restaurants in town. They do have pleasant surprises/dishes sometimes, but those are not on the menu, you have to ask in mandarin to get them.
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