China Palace Restaurant - Milpitas

Running into restaurant by accident. One Saturday afternoon we were in the area and was looking to try some Chinese food. There was another restaurant next to China Palace that seems to serve the same style home cooking food. Correct me if I'm wrong since I can't read Chinese.

We chose China Palace to the other one because they were busier at the time while the next door one was empty. But again this was way past lunch time. While waiting to be seated I noticed their special menu for the day which was mostly written in Chinese except for a few English words which include crocodile, dear, etc. Interesting.

I had the take menu in hand which I grabbed outside and we knew what we wanted. But it took about a good 10 minutes before the waitress came to take our order. And that's only after I frantically waived my hand to get her attention. There were only two waitresses working at the time. Our waiter took our orders without anything written down. I was wondering if she would get our order right.

The first thing out was some boba milk tea. This is usually sold as dessert with different flavored tea with or without boba (tapioca pearls). We were puzzled as we didn't order any drinks. Turned out that they were complimentary. The drinks were watered down so even hubby who usually likes sweet stuff didn't drink more than one sip.

Next was the spicy bean paste noodle. It was one big bowl of boiled noodle with black bean paste stir fried with some sort of minced meat and pork skin (?). Next to the paste was thinly sliced cucumber strips. Mixed it well and we were ready to dig in. We were also brought two tiny bowls and small plates. I guess it's just common to share dishes so they were ready before we even asked for it. The noodle was pretty good but very oily. Not spicy at all for us. It had a bit after taste heat in the mouth but that's about it.

The fried rice turned out to be better than expected. Get ready to be fishy though even though we didn't really tasted any chunk of salted fish (except hubby). But it had a good flavor and taste. The chicken meat was a bit questionable. It looked and tasted to me to be mostly skin or some I-don't-what-chewy-stuff. So I picked them out and just ate the rice.

The hot wings were not as hot as expected but freshly prepared so it's worth extra point. All in all were decent meal but most likely we won't be back soon. Service was not exactly their strongest point. I think it's best visited with a group of people so you get to try different dishes. Price was decent and good for value.

China Palace
688 Barber Ln, Milpitas, CA 95035  (408)894-7060