My family and I are in town for the weekend and were looking for a Chinese restaurant to eat at. There's a difference between take-out "Chinese Food" and authentic, would-eat-at-home Chinese food. We saw that there's mostly only the former in Clarkston, probably due to the small Asian population here. After seeing the very polarized reviews of this restaurant, we thought it'd be best to go try it ourselves. The interior of the restaurant is very nice, adorned with traditional Chinese decor and clean, red seats. There weren't too many people when we first entered, but as we ordered a couple more families came in (Friday, dinnertime). The menu had the basic "Chinese" items as well as some Thai options as well. They all looked okay for the type of Chinese food I was expecting, and while my Chinese parents probably wanted a home cooked meal, this would do for me! The waiter came and brought us waters and then the manager/owner/the-like came out and greeted us in Chinese! She said there aren't many Chinese people who come and that if nothing on the menu was suitable, they happened to be cooking for themselves and offered us some more authentic dishes. We waited a while and saw some other people get their food with what I'm assuming was complimentary rice and soup, and then our dishes came out: Mapo Tofu Fried Chicken Strips with Special Sauce Bitter Melon and Sardines (? I think) Chinese Chives and Pork Stomach (? Also unsure of translation haha) White Rice (my fav) Everything was SO GOOD... My mom literally ate half the sardines and bitter melon dish by herself. The Mapo Tofu wasn't that spicy. The owners are GuangDong Ren and still managed to speak Mandarin to my parents. (If you know, you know). Not too pricey in comparison to other authentic Chinese Restaurants. If you are looking for some real, homemade Chinese food -- in addition to typical, delicious "Chinese Food", I urge you to come here. The waiter and owner were so nice, not just to us but to other guests as well. There's also a bar and pick-up/take-out options available! read more

Food is bland, egg rolls are not fresh bean sprouts, just cabbage. vegetable fried rice is lacking selection of vegetables like carrots and peppers, just broccoli basically. Owners' son was unfreiendly and kind of grumpy. On top of that they want you to pay for real plum sauce for egg roll. read more

The staff was nice to me, explained I should call in to save money since Yelp! takes a percentage. I found that endearing. I did pick up but looking at the lobby, it was very clean, a little dark. I haven't seen a Chinese restaurant open to dining since before Covid. I got orange chicken... it looked more like sweat and sour chicken. Soup was great. Egg roll has a strange after taste. I would eat there again. read more

I told the woman that I wanted my meal spicy hot. What I got was bland and the vegetables and chicken was sliced up small and the portions were small and rice wasn't that good either. I highly recommend WING LAUK on Dixie. Tony is the best. This place is a Waste of money read more

East Ocean Chinese Restaurant - Szechuan chicken - Chinese Near Me - Clarkston, Michigan

Best Chinese in the Waterford/Clarkston area. General Tao is good, excellent soup and egg rolls. Good service too if you eat in person

Friendly servers. Food is pricey, but good. Service time is fairly quick. I definitely recommend.

My husband and I stopped by for the first time on a Saturday evening. We were in town for a concert & had some time to kill before the show. Every restaurant we passed in town, was really busy, so we stopped here. There was only 1 other customer in the restaurant. The server was really nice & she took our order & brought out our food in record time, which was great. But the food was not good at all. He ordered Pad Thai w/tofu & everything about it, tasted off. He ate a few bites & couldn't eat anymore, it was so gross. I had Shrimp Lo Mein & it had an unusual flavor that I was not a fan of. We also both had the egg drop soup, which was ok. It was edible but not great. The server (who may have been the owner too) was really friendly but I think she was hurt that we didn't eat much & didn't want a to go box. We didn't want to hurt her feelings so Thankfully we had a valid excuse; we're not from around there & we're going to a concert on a hot summer night. Needless to say, we won't be back. read more

2stars is maybe a hair generous. 1.75 is more like it. Was hoping for this place to be good. I have lived in Michigan for 27 years and have only found 1 good place in commerce township and it closed 15 years ago lol. But I digress. The good I guess Portion size is definitely plenty. We got our food quick. The pork low mein was actually fair The pork fried rice was edible. The bad. The pot stickers were strange. The filling I think was like a chicken paste or something. Tasted very odd. Not odd like it was turned or anything just really unusual without having anything hood or interesting about it. I have an adventurous palate but this was just bizarre take on dumplings.. Couldn't eat them. Szechuan chicken was flavorless and the chicken was dry as a bone Broccoli beef had no detectable garlic or ginger flavor and the meat wasn't marinated in sodium bicarbonate, or cornstarch so none of the flavor or velvety mouthful of authentic Chinese. Egg rolls meh. Price was pretty high for 3 entrees a quart of pfr and 2 apps $70 with carry out tip. Oh and the didn't give us a rice with one of the entrees. Nothing overtly bad or unclean but I am baffled as to how such non flavor or mediocre flavor can be put on a plate. I can cook real Chinese. The prep just takes forever and I don't have the time but I am resigned to the fact that there just isn't good Chinese in Michigan. I wish I were raving about this place. Sincerely. read more

Avoid this place, you can find better options elsewhere. Ordered Moo Shoo and they didn't give me the pancakes and only gave me a tiny container of hoisin, dish was watered down and had little flavor, the other order was pork lo-mein, pork was tough and dry, noodles were thick, like fat spaghetti and the dish was very bland with hunks of green onions that were not chewable. The real kicker was the little egg rolls that were all dough, no flavor. How can a Chinese restaurant mess up egg rolls??? I thought they were pretty standard everywhere, I have never had a problem with buying egg rolls anywhere until this place. Oh, and it was really expensive for the portions. Much better food around town!!! read more

Very good food. We have been there a few times and it's always good food and fast service.

Food was absolutely delicious. Highly recommend this place service was excellent. Family owned business.

Best Chinese I've had. I suggest Szechuan chicken, almond boneless chicken, orange chicken and wonton soup! Quickly made and good service when you dine in. read more

Not impressed at all and either is my stomach. Slow service (one server for dinner). Kids food and app came out right away (yeah), but my husband and mine did not. So we thought, ok that's nice have toddler foods out first so they can start eating- great. BUT after 20 mins, and the kids both finishing their plates- our entrees were still not on the table! I asked the only server, who said any minute. Another 5 mins went by, both kids are fussy/crying being toddlers and finally the food came out. Shrimp was awful, breading tasted like doughnuts- $14 entree and I hardly touched it. Will not be back. read more

Terrible tasting food, the meat is boiled and not fried and is bland and tasteless. The pad Thai lacks flavor and sweetness with bland sauce and the egg tasted like it was 2 days old. The spring rolls and pretty much anything that was fried tasted like the oil used was low grade and not changed in a while. All in all the very worst Chinese meal I have ever tasted / never finished. Don't waste your time and money at this low grade excuse for a Chinese / Thai restaurant! Horrible read more

I like their orange chicken , so yummy when I eat at their place right away. Crispy and great sauce. Another dish -fried wonton, my husband loves it. Special hot & sour soup, it is so awesome, I can't stop eating the soup. Thank you !!! read more

I don't usually write reviews, but we love this place and I was sad to see how many negative reviews they had. We've tried almost every Chinese restaurant in the Clarkston area in this one is by far the best. We love their General Tso and Almond Chicken. read more

First and last time I'll ever go here,ordered sweet and sour chicken combo with the sauce on the side as i always do,they put the sauce in a large styrofoam container and put that inside my food container in place of half of my chicken,there were only 8 pieces of chicken in there.I have never gotten such a skimpy Chinese take out in my life. And the worst part is the food that was there wasn't very good unless you like overcooked dry chicken and flavorless rice.over price and very bad portions,I would recommend going anywhere else besides here worst takeout I have ever wasted my money on. read more

Ordered for the first time yesterday. Won't be going back, ever. Ordered at 3pm. Looked like the food was yesterdays left overs. Rice was hard and dry. Chicken chop suey had hardly any chicken in it and had NO sauce on it. Very dry. Ham fried rice had absolutely no taste. Very dry, no green onions or egg. Very disappointed. read more

Horrible! Ordered sushi from here because it was open on thanksgiving. The tuna, salmpn and shimp was going bad in the rolls! I cannot believe a restaurant would serve this as food!!! read more

Seems most reviews about this place are not that good. But I really like this place and have been coming here for years. Really clean and always very friendly. And the food is always good. Its not the best Chinese I have had but far better than most places around this area. read more

East Ocean Chinese Restaurant - Good pad thai... - Chinese Near Me - Clarkston, Michigan

We ate here by chance and it will be our go to place as long as we're in the area. Everything was delicious right down to the wonton "crackers". read more

I ordered orange chicken and pot slickers. There was a large amount of orange chicken- but quantity doesn't equal quality. The orange chicken was exactly that- BRIGHT orange, like the color or Tang. Not exactly appetizing for dinner. It also was very bland, greasy, and drenched in the radioactive colored orange sauce. The breading was thin and gross. I highly advise not to order orange chicken. The pot slickers looked very appetizing. There were 6 and they came with a cup of sauce which also looked very good. Sadly they didn't taste good. The pot slickers were too doughy with almost no flavor! I was so disappointed!! They were so bland. I ate two and tried to convince myself they were good, but they were just not. Also very greasy, which I could have tolerated if they had tasted good. The sauce was not good either. I ended up throwing the meal away. I was just very disappointed by this meal as a whole. I was there for about 5-10 minutes waiting and there were several people that came in, so I assumed by how busy they were that the food would be good... I was very wrong. I have been to the restaurant Hong Kong on Sashabaw Road by Kroger (one minute from East Ocean) and their pot slickers are amazing! I should have just stuck with them. I will not be returning to the East Ocean restaurant. It was a waste of money. read more

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Slow staff food was Buffett quality at best and pricing is high We ordered soup and a large soup sit down is a carryout small read more

Ya...talk about understaffed, overpriced, unorganized. Sat down with daughter, had menus just about thrown on the table while she went to answer the phone. Waited...nothing, then we just left. One waitress. Forget about this place. Wont be back read more

This place has the best almond chicken I have ever had. The grave is so good and the chicken is nice and thin and the wonton is great too. I don't know how they make the sauce but you will never find anything like it anywhere. The restaurant is a nice quiet and relaxing place. The owner is really friendly too. Truly a hidden gem this restaurant is! read more

The problem with this restaurant is the staff. Ordered sweet and sour chicken which is supposed to come with white rice...They didn't give me any. I noticed it when I got in my car before I left the parking lot. I went back inside and told them I didn't get any white rice. The waitress handled it alright but the young cook was very argumentive. They were yelling at each other back in forth in Chinese while I'm just standing there waiting for white rice. Finally the waitress looks at me and said he wants to look in the bag. I about had it and told them that they were making a way bigger deal than it needed to be. Needless to say I made white rice at home. the positive is that the food was decent. read more

Would leave less stars if possible. Worst Chinese food I've ever had. Everything was overpriced, service was slow, I cant believe this place is still in business. read more

Love Love Love, Cute interior, just like a 1960's Chinese restaurant. The best Thai curry noodles I have ever eaten, Addictive! Every entree we have tried has been delicious. This is the favorite Chinese restaurant of my very picky 90 year old father too. So glad we found it. read more

There are not a lot of Asian options in S.E. Michigan with out going to the buffet style which are like Chinese Old Country Buffets. This is a real restaurant, and our favorite place for Chinese and Thai food. The general Tao Chichen is great, the Pad Thai is better than any Thai restaurant in the area. The evening wait staff Katie and Lee are very sweet ladies. I was disturbed by the other unfavorable reviews here. One guy was unhappy with the Sushi, I've never tried it here and wouldn't even think of Sushi anyplace unless that was the house specialty. I think they are asking for food poisoning. Another prolific reviewer that slammed my fav place had no positive reviews of any Chinese restaurants, they should stick with McDonalds. read more

Very good food. On the expensive side but you do get a lot of food. I usually get the beef n broccoli and others like the orange chicken or general tso and always great read more

Bland, bland, bland! I ordered the Kung Pao Chicken which is supposed to be a spicy dish, and was even noted so on the menu, but it was about as spicy as a basic chicken stir fry, and a tasteless one at that. This place is just a regular old over-Americanized Chinese restaurant that dumps soy sauce on leftover bite-sized pieces of chicken and vegetables and calls it a meal. read more

We realized we had not eaten Chinese food in a long time and then after buying from this place we remembered that we quit eating it because this is out nearest place and it sucks so badly. This food passed for Chinese back when there was no Chinese food in Michigan. If China knew about this they would nuke Clarkston. This Chinese is so bad using dog meat might be an improvement. Drive however long you have to to avoid this place! read more

All the ppl who are rating this restaurant 2 and under doesn't know the difference between authentic Chinese food and American Chinese food and to top it off different style and taste depending if its Cantonese style or Mandarin. This is a truly authentic Chinese restaurant and it was great. If you want the norm Chinese food taste go to the buffet on Baldwin across from Great Lakes. I wouldn't recommend the sushi because a Chinese rest wouldn't make it like a real Japanese re rest, go to sagano right next to them. Other than that great place great food and service! You guys don't know what your talking about. Or eat more Chinese food! read more

Won't be coming here any longer. They no longer offer a hamburger or hot dog for our picky eater.

place is great for Chinese American food. Don't listen to these bad reviews ,go try out, it's a nice place with very nice people.

Very rude waitress , she yell at me and then threw the receipt because I did not included the tip at the credit card receipt . Maybe she did not understand that I don't tip on company card but cash but after the yell who will tip that lady , they should be more professional on what they do . Maybe that's the reason why the place is almost empty all the time . read more

So so bad. Food was disgusting and made us all feel gross.

Worst Chinese I've ever had. Vegetables were limp and tasteless - did not appear fresh - possibly frozen. Ordered two entrees to go and got one small box of rice. read more

Best cashew chicken !!!!! Best sweet and sour chicken !!!!! Best Chinese in Clarkston My family has been coming here for over 10 years. Always great food and great service Ignore the bad reviews come get some cashew chicken the freshest and best in Clarkston read more

I'm really surprised by the negative reviews on here. I've been coming here for years, since it first opened...and have had nothing but exceptional service and good quality food. read more