Kirbie's Cravings

Golden City Late Night


Golden City
5375 Kearny Villa Rd
San Diego, CA 92123

(858) 565-6682

www.goldencitysandiego.com

I have been wanting to try Golden City for either their lunch or late night special for a while now.  Normally, Golden City’s food prices are on the high side.  But during lunch hours and after 9 at night, Golden City offers a discounted menu, with most dishes priced around $7-9.  You can view the menu on their website.  I finally had an opportunity to try their late night menu recently.

When we arrived for dinner, I was surprised about how busy the place still was.  More busy than Emerald or Shanghai City on the nights when I tried their late night specials.  My group was pretty hungry, so we ordered several dishes.

The pictures I took don’t really do the food justice.  It’s hard to take good photos when there is poor light and a hungry crowd.  First, we ordered a seafood tofu claypot.


This was one of my favorite dishes of the night.  Even though the price was discounted, the quantity was still pretty big, with lots of fish, shrimp, and squid inside the clay pot.  The tofu was tender.  The dish was made just right.

We also ordered a stir fried on-choy dish.  There was a lot of steam when I was snapping this picture.

This dish was slightly disappointing.  They barely cut the vegetable, other than making a cut at the stems.  It made it hard to eat.  Every time I took a chopstick full of this dish, it was like eating spaghetti, with the long strands of on-choy.  I would have liked this dish better if they had cut it properly, to more bite-sized portions.

We also ordered fish fillet with black bean sauce, one of Boyfriend’s favorite dishes.

This dish tasted pretty good, though slightly on the salty side.

We ordered a Yang Chow Fried rice.

This dish was disappointing.  Very bland and flavorless.  I wold have thought fried rice should be an easy dish for Golden City to make.

Fried pork intestines.

Every place I’ve tried fried pork intestines seems to make it a bit differently.  Golden City serves it pure; just fried intestines cut into stripes.  It was quite pretty.  I wondered if it would be too bland to just eat the intestines by itself, or whether it would be too oily, but I enjoyed it.

Fried pork with spicy salt.

This dish looked pretty from the outset.  Lots of golden fried pieces of pork.  Unfortunately, the batter was way too thick and there was barely any meat.  In fact, Little Sister bit into pieces that were pure fat and no meat at all.

Fried noodle with XO sauce.

I didn’t particularly liked this dish, but Little Sister and Little Brother liked it.  It was a very simple dish, all noodles and sauce.  The noodles are rolled up rice noodle.  I’m not sure why it is called fried noodle.

At the end of the meal, we were given dessert! I love getting free dessert.  It was tapioca with taro, one of my favorites.

All in all, the meal was pretty enjoyable.  There were some disappointments, but there are so many dishes on the late night menu, that I’m sure I’ll find other dishes I enjoy.  I was particularly impressed with the service.  Most chinese restaurants are not known for their service.  Adding in the factor that we were eating the discounted menu, and I wasn’t expecting much.  But our waters were refilled, our leftovers were packed for us, our dessert was given to us without asking, and our check was given to us promptly.

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7 comments on “Golden City Late Night”

  1. Pingback: Golden City « CAB Cooks

  2. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to finally come here. I wish I had found it sooner!

  3. this was a nice find when i went to ucsd….good late night eats when we didn’t want mexican food. i love ong choy…too bad it wasn’t that good on your visit. btw i love their colors on their sign!

  4. I think I wasn’t much of a fan of the XO Sauce Chow Fun because I don’t really care for Chow Fun. Heh. But my siblings like it so they liked the dish. I saw the Pork Intestine with preserved vegetable and was debating ordering it; I’ll definitely try it next time. I love fish filet with corn, I’ll have to get it next time! Thanks for the recs!

  5. I’m a fan of this place after my last visit. I plan to make several trips for lunch in the near future. I’ll try the squid in shrimp sauce next time. It’s good to know that the servers are nice on your visits as well.

  6. Hey Kirbie – Actually, I enjoy the XO Sauce Chow Fun too…. it’s kinds strange when it hits the table, but I’ve had this as Dim Sum in places…. nice gooey-ness. The do make intestines pretty well – check out the Pork Intestines with preserved vegetable next time, it’s quite good. The Missus loves the fish with black bean, and the fish filet with corn. I’m always glad when I see the place packed since I want them to stay in business. Well priced, decent Chinese food is hard to find in San Diego.

  7. The Mister and I have become quite fond of this place. As a matter of fact, I’m just finishing up a post on lunch at GC. The cod with black bean sauce is one of our favorites. The other dish we really love is the squid in shrimp sauce. I had originally wanted to try the squid with spicy salt but thought shrimp sauce would be better. Thank goodness I did because that squid was awesome!
    We also joked that the servers were so nice and they must not realize it’s a Chinese restaurant, hehe.