Golden East Garden Strives for Excellence (VIDEO)

Wen Lin has one thing on his mind when he steps into his restaurant -perfection.

From finding the freshest ingredients and the highest quality seafood, to keeping a close on the kitchen and the dishes they’re putting out, and every other last detail, very little escapes the notice of the owner of .

“My husband is very picky about everything,” said Anne Wen, who works the front of the house. “He wants everything to be good. Sometimes when we get home, we come right back. It’s a good thing we live 10 minutes away.”

Wen and Ann Lin opened the Golden East Chinese Restaurant in the Mid-State Mall in 1989, after working with family at a restaurant in Canada for several years.

“We worked with my brother and sister, but we had family here too, and it was warmer here. It’s very cold here,” joked Anne about the reason the couple pulled up stakes and left for New Jersey.

 Since their arrival, the restaurant has garnered high praise not only from customers but also from local media, capturing the Readers Choice award from The Home News Tribune for 10 years running.

Part of that success comes from the Lin’s desire to provide the best food they can. Golden East gets four deliveries a week, and gets two deliveries of seafood a week, and they’re not against paying more for bigger, or larger items, such as shrimp.

“We pick a lot by hand, if we have to pay 30 or 40 cents more, it’s OK. It’s what I want,” said Anne. “It’s part of our personality, we’d rather have quality  not quantity.”

While Wen is no longer the head chef, he still knows his way around the kitchen.  Patrolling the dining room and kitchen during lunch and dinner services, he’s able to see how the food is coming out with just a glance. He can tell if there is too much or not enough of an ingredient, or if something is wrong in the back of the restaurant just by looking at the plates as they come out.

“He doesn’t have to cook to know if there is too much water, or too much sugar,” said Anne.

During his early days as a chef, he worked at a hospital in Rahway, where his treats for Chinese New Year turned more than a few heads.

“For Chinese New Year, the hospital director came and saw the line, and he said ‘oh my God,” said Wen.

Wen said that some of those hospital employees remember his lunches, and are among the many regular customers at Golden East. In that, they are not alone. Anne says that she knows some of her customers so well that she feels like they are family.

“It is like a big family, sometimes I see  one customer’s daughter more than the mom,” she said. “Sometimes the mom comes and I tell her, ‘I just saw your daughter,’ and she says, ‘you see her more than I did.’ ”