Jing Chuan. - Toledo

Freshly made food and nicely decorated inside. The best wonton soup I've ever eaten. Almond Chicken is wonderful... My favorite Chinese restaurant in the area...

I can only think of a couple family-style sit-down Chinese diners in town, besides the usual corner take-out Chinese. Don 't give me wrong; every American has days when you need to stuff a carton full of chicken lo mein and binge TV, but sometimes you want Chinese food, and just wanna be able to sit down in front of a nice round table for a meal. I feel like JC is one of them although I have yet to sit on a round table there.. I think it might be possible that they get the stick because of its core demographics. Every time I went to sit down--which has been a handful now, the place was packed with mainly white oldtimers. But take into account the town 's makeup, I think it makes sense that majority of clientelle would older white families. I certainly have not seen any Asian families outside of mine, nor too many black families. Now, I 'm not bringing up the ethnic makeup of its clientelle to be a racist. A people whom have lived in Toledo area all their lives I 've talked to about JC have mentioned that a lot of people seem to have a preconceived notion that JC is maybe not a very authentic Chinese restaurant because only white people go there, which I can understand. Generally speaking, if you 're looking for authentic ethnic food, I 'd look for a place that is infested with the same ethnic people. So naturally, if you rarely see Chinese people in a Chinese restaurant, some might get skeptical. Here 's my take. JC IS in fact, a legit Chinese restaurant with proper Chinese taste. You just need to get the items NOT from their lunch special menu, but the full house menu. Let me elaborate. First time I came was with my wife. We wanted a combination of a Korean-Chinese dish (it 's a thing! and an authentic Chinese dish. We ended up ordering a sizzling rice soup as an apetizer, which was great. We also ended up liking the Chinese dish better than the other. So we decided to get full Chinese menu next time around. The next time was even better with two full Chinese dish and an egg drop soup to share. Believe it or not, the ED soup was THE dish that had us fully convinced about JC. I 'll be honest that we both had our preconceived expectations of what an egg drop soup was supposed to taste like, and that it would be next to impossible to mess this up. What we didn 't realize was how much better it would taste if done right. JC 's version was so much better than any others we 'd had. I don 't mean to set anyone 's expectations crazy high here. It 's not like EDS is gonna all of a sudden taste like a shark 's fin soup or anything. But if you know anything about cooking, and how changing a simplest ingredient like using chicken stock over water can make or break a dish, you 'll know what I 'm talking about. It was full of flavor!! I will, however warn you that when I ordered a lunch special dish that came with an egg drop soup, it did not taste the same at all! I 'm convinced that they cook different versions of it for lunch because of the amount of servings. Anyway, my family have been going back to try different dishes every time and we 've so far been very happy. My next adventure is their Peking duck. It 's not offered anywhere else in the area that I 'm aware of. It 's definitely in the more expensive side of the spectrum compared to nearby cities like Columbus, but I 'm willing to give it a shot with hopes that maybe their ducks might be bigger, or they would offer duck bone soup like a proper Peking duck place would. I will definitely come back to review when that happens!

Even though Jing Chuan is known amongst our friends as some of the best Chinese in the area, we've never made it out. Not for any particular reason, other than the fact that it's just a few blocks off the beaten path and just completely off our radar. That is, until now. And now that we've had our first visit to Jing Chuan, we're already debating what we'll order next. Will it be the giant sharable bowl of hot and sour soup, filled to the brim with pieces of tofu, shrimp, and other interestingly chopped or julienned veggies? Likely yes, we'll order that next time. Or maybe it's the green onion pancake, which can serve as an app or even as a light entree with the above-mentioned soup? Yes, we will order that next time too. How about the hilarious appetizer sampler, with a burning volcano-like flame in the middle, which seems to serve no purpose other than to wow you as you eat the spring rolls and ribs? We're not sure about that one, but the point is, the food here is really really good! Some of the best Chinese (American) we've had in recent memory. And while the atmosphere is an odd mix of some older school 1980s Chinese vibes, mixed with some mildly terrible contemporary finishes and furniture, the staff is SUPER friendly, and the food comes out insanely fast. On our first visit, it took longer to take care of the check than it did to place our order and eat our food. From the signs of the tables entirely full by 7 pm, this spot is popular and well-loved by the locals. We're excited to finally have it in our repertoire, and look forward to becoming regulars as well.

Absolute worst service ever! We waited an hour and a half and had to ask to place our order. People that came after us had already started eating before we even placed our order. Some people in our party of 8 received their food while others had to wait quite a long time. The waitress was very rude. She would put our meals on the table and with an attitude she'd push them across the table to people. She was obviously very irritated about something. I reached my hand out to get the bill and instead of giving it to me she placed it on the table across from me. Not sure why she didn't ask but she put all 8 of us on one bill and then she got upset when we told her that we were not all on the same check. The food portions seemed smaller than usual and they were never big. We're absolutely done with this place.

One of our long time favorites for Chinese and a long time Toledo restaurant. Service was good and our waitress was very attentive. Soup and appetizers came out quickly. Our entrees were serviced correctly and hot. Jing Chuan decor has that authentic fell but most of all is kept very clean. I don't think you'll be disappointed.