The Golden Empress Garden is in our opinion the best Chinese food we have had so far on South Street. Also, for you meat loving carnivores, do not be mis-lead by the sign, like we were. They also have vegetarian specialties - not only have vegetarian specialties. It'll make the menu less confusing when you realize this. For the vegetarians and vegans, they have a large selection of mock meat dishes.
We decided to start with some hot tea which came in a quaint little tea pot. You definitely want to let the tea steap a little as they do give you a fresh leaves, not pre-steaped tea.
We also ordered a couple of appetizers which were the stars of the meal for me. Erin always orders the chinese pancakes. The fried dough with scallions came with a soy sauce based dipping sauce and were so so good. So simple and so good.
We also ordered the pan fried wontons, with pork as the filling, I believe.
Also very delicious.
With all the excitement about the vegetarian specialties I decided to try one of the mock meat dishes. Something I do at Chinese restaurants is order the mock General Tso's chicken if they have it. I do this to see if any place in Philly can come close to the version of this dish that Square on Square, on 19th and chestnut, makes. Unfortunately this did not, but it wasn't bad.
The sauce was a little too sweet for my likes and not enough garlic. The mock meat though was light balls of seitan that were quite delicious. I had enough for leftovers that evening that I snarfed down real quick.
Ergo, if you are in this part of town and are craving chinese, I recommend Golden Empress Garden. They have a large selection of food for vegetarians and meat lovers alike and the quality of the food is higher than other Chinese places on South Street that we've encountered.
Golden Empress Garden
618 South Street
Philadelphia PA 19147
215-625-6688
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