Oriental Express - Nowatney

Popped in Christmas night after a day of traveling. Service was great, food hot and fresh. Egg rolls were some of the best we've ever had. Would absolutely recommend for anyone on a budget. Portions are huge. General Tso Chicken was great, not too spicy and everything was cooked to order.

I went with my friend last night and we ordered beef broccoli shrimp, egg roll fried cheese wonton and shrimp fried rice. We sat there to eat a little before leaving, my friend immediately said something is up with the rice. I tasted mine wasn’t fond of the way the beef tasted and it was loaded with grease. By the time we got home 10 mins my stomach had shooting pain. I was so so hungry I still tried to eat some and it was loaded with sodium and grease!!! The broccoli was soggy and the beef I’m not sure what it was, it had a weird texture meat was very chewy and I couldn’t swallow it. $35 worth of food went straight to the trash. This morning waking up my stomach is cramping I’m running back and forth to the bathroom. I would give 0 stars if I could. Not sure how this place is in business.

Ordered the General Tsos chicken, dumplings, and chicken low mein. The general tsos chicken appeared to be just flavored bread crumbs, we could not find any chicken. The chicken lo mein had no flavor to it and the chicken was a strange consistency. The dumplings were decent though. It wasn’t the worst chinese food on the planet but I do not plan on coming back.

The food was fine, just ok level. Chicken rice soup was good, but Sashimi wasn't that great... but not that surprised. What I wasn't satisfied with was cashiers--seemed like they really don't care about customers. The owner/chef looked nice and a bit more kind, though. Overall, I would not recommend it. If you're super craving some Asian dishes and have no other options, maybe this place would be a decent choice, though.

Now this is what I call Chinese takeout. It was some of the best I ever had. The orange chicken was insanely crispy I 10/1 recommend getting it. Everything else tasted like good Chinese food, it was really the chicken that blew us away. But we got a ton of food that lasted us days. Almost considered coming back for dinner the next day if we didn’t have so much left over. It was a convenient spot too in downtown Tampa when we were staying in the Hyatt. In fact, it seemed like it was the only place even opened later or at all.