Golden Top Resturant: Gold Standard in Chinese Food?

Golden Top Restaurant:

9091 Mathis Ave, Suite 101
Manassas, VA

Golden Top is a moderate-sized restaurant located on Mathis Avenue.  Like me, I’m sure many residents have ordered from there,  or passed by daily, but never dined in. While the dining experience was nothing extraordinary and it seems like a fine enough place to venture for a bite, although its facade is quite a turn off. The inside of the restaurant was rather dim, but charming enough.

I was told by the man in front to sit wherever and a friendly server came over to me soon after. She brought some water and asked for my order; I think she was quite shocked when I ordered three entrees—one beef, one chicken and one seafood—but I felt the need to try several dishes since Salt could not make it. I also order a couple of spring rolls, which were nice and crunchy, but rather bland.

I ordered my food, and it took about 15-20 minutes to be prepared.

The three dishes I ordered were Mongolian beef, Hunan chicken and shrimp and scallops in garlic sauce. The Mongolian beef had a good flavor, but was mostly onions. What beef that could be found, was not very good.

The Hunan chicken was good, not the mushy stuff, the sauce was only slightly spicy, but good nevertheless. It didn’t have the mix of vegetables normally in Hunan dishes and was mostly broccoli and chicken.

The shrimp and scallops had a very tasty sauce, but was a little too fishy. The scallops were slightly overcooked and the shrimp a tad soggy, which I guess is unavoidable when it's drenched in sauce.

I would say the food overall was a good deal for the price, but I found the dinner portions to be smaller than what's served at  other restaurants.

The restaurant was decorated in a Chinese theme, of course, and it appeared they hadn’t redecorated in a very long time, which made it seem musty.  My overall opinion? Old Chinese restaurant with pretty decent food. I think I will continue to do delivery in the future, but it was fun to see what the restaurant looks like.  Word of caution: Avoid beef options.

 My experience with Golden Top delivery is that the timing is always off and it seems to takes a lot longer than they say, so order early.

I give Golden Top a low cleanliness score because of the bathrooms.

Price: $

Cleanliness: 2/5

Atmosphere: 3/5

Forms of Payment: Cash, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover

Full bar

Hours: Tue-Thu 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

 Fri 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.

Sat 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m.

Sun 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.

Closed Mondays.