I can't help but review this place in comparison to my memories of it. My friend and I used to go here every weekend when we were in high school. We would each get a large order of General Tso's chicken and take half of it home. I always intended to eat it later, but then my mom discovered it and I just wound up getting two orders. That stuff was amazing.
Over 10 years later, it's not fair to expect that the place is the same, and it isn't. The new dining room is a lot bigger, for one, and they're a lot busier. And I'm vegetarian now, but luckily, good old Red Flower didn't let me down. Their "diet special" menu section appears mostly vegetarian, so I had the bean curd and broccoli, which was good but could have used more sauce. I guess the "diet" part is that you just get a drizzle of sauce on it, but the tofu (bean curd) was nice and crispy, and I always enjoy broccoli.
We also had the sweet cheese wontons, which I didn't like so much. They were just too sweet, and I prefer a savory cream cheese wonton. And the bags of wonton strips tasted like bagged wonton strips; they were stale and inedible. I'd stay away from those.
My husband got the General Tso's chicken, because I told him he should. He didn't like it as much. It didn't look like the same dish I used to get, and when I tried a little bit of the sauce, it didn't taste the same either. Oh well. There are a lot of other things on the menu, but that's a bit disappointing.
Red Flower is very good for the area, and it's one of the extremely few places there that will feed me a substantive meatless meal. It doesn't hold up to comparison with other Chinese restaurants I've tried outside the area, but then again, there isn't a lot of other Chinese food around. Am I a little biased in favor of this place? Absolutely, but if you're in Richlands looking for a decent (not fast food) meal at a decent price, I would definitely recommend it. read more