Golden Garlic - San Jose

Very authentic Chinese restaurant with the northern kitchen around Beijing/Tianjin area. the deco was amazing, highlighting a mixture of volatile pop culture tracks and sparkling nostalgic feelings for many generations. eating was great, and the deep fritted steam balls with brewed fish are savory and a must-have. the sweet acid fried fish is ok, but can be too oily for some people. have not yet tried their Sichuan kitchen serving. next time.

Strong flavors? Sufficient spiciness? True to their garlicky name? Check check check! Wanting to try something new in San Jose, Yelp led us to Golden Garlic and did not disappoint! Looking over their menu, you 'll find it sufficiently marked with little chili peppers, but fear not, it 's not so much spicy as it is fragrant in a variety of spices. We began our meal with jelly noodles with chili sauce. This is a very popular street food and I thought Golden Garlic did theirs very well. For those unfamiliar, the jelly noodles or liangfen is made of a starch powder (pea, sweet potato, or mung bean are common) then cut into strips. It is then generously submerged in a chili pepper sauce. Golden Garlic 's chili pepper sauce is second to none in my opinion. It was so fragrant with a distinct garlic flavor, subtle nuttiness, and subtle smokiness. We admittedly did not eat all of the jelly noodles because we wanted to keep the chili sauce! Next came the Zha Jiang Noodles which were good and chewy. You can control the amount of soybean paste you add, but I 'd say to just go for it. Usually, I 'm accustomed to this dish having just a little meat or other extras but it was mostly julienned cucumbers and the sauce. No complaints though. Then came our entrees. We opted to try a little bit of everything the famed beef with golden garlic, the steamed pork ribs in lotus leaves, cauliflower with ham, and to round it all out, house dumplings. From best to worse, the pork ribs were absolutely delicious. Steamed to submission, even the bones were softened. Flavors were on point, but I opted to use some of the chili sauce from the jelly noodles dish and I thought it was sooo good! Next, the cauliflower. I thought the dish was very good cauliflower was cooked perfectly, but I was a little disappointed they used Chinese sausage instead of ham (as advertised) which would have made this dish a little more special in my opinion. Next, the dumplings. I thought the filling was very dense and the dumpling skin was on the thicker side. Still, they were pretty good. The only dish that was sadly mildly inedible was the beef and garlic. It was very heavy handed on salt and definitely needed to be accompanied by rice to temper it out. We barely touched this dish, but we all loved the ample cloves of garlic and nibbled on those throughout this meal! Overall, it was a good and filling meal. We would welcome a return!

Extensive menu with mostly good to great dishes. Standout was the signature beef with garlic dish--tender, flavorful chunks of well-seasoned beef paired with cloves of garlic. Awesome! Wontons in chili oil were also tasty, as were the fried prawns (in egg yolk? , salt and pepper fish (on the salty side , and black bean noodles (on the sweeter side . Only downside here was the cumin lamb, a dish I normally adore. Their rendition is unbearably spicy, to the point of being torturous and inedible. However, service was good and food came out fast, so I would come back here to try some of their other dishes... and maybe next time ask them to tone down the spice to a level that doesn't annihilate taste buds.

Not bad. Beef stew was tasty, but the beef wasn't great (also not bad). Fish soup was good. Steamed pork which was recommended to us by the server was only ok. Service was also surprisingly good, given the fact that service at most Asian establishments is typically lousy. Overall, it was decent and I would go back to try other things on the menu.

Ordered the crispy fish with tomato sauce today, this is how it looks like..... And it tastes lawful.... So disappointed. Not sure if the chef has been changed.... I have been keep visiting this restaurant for last 2 years. Won’t come again.