Golden Gate Restaurant

Awesome chinese food! The szechuan shredded pork is to die for! Little bit of a dive inside but the food is amazing. Ordered and been to the restaurant many times and never a bad meal! Best Chinese food I had in 3 ½ years in Calgary!

Solid 3.5 stars. This resto is way out deep south, in comparison to where I was staying in DT.
Actually, a bit funny that my Unilocal was down so I went on Urbanspoon which had significantly higher ratings, in the 70%‘s I believe but I digress once again.
Located in a main road of a residential area, in a big plaza but with only a handful of businesses. Having just come from the Southcentre Mall, just a 5 min. drive away.
Ordered my favourite, the honey garlic spareribs: fresh, tasty, and enough honey sauce for dipping. I actually viewed the menu first, and the hostess, Ling, was patient and nice enough that I decided to give it a try.
It’s actually a nice sit-​down restaurant, simple and clean. When you walk in, all the action seemed to be on the left, but I asked to be seated in a quieter section on the right.
While I believe they cater towards the western market, they are Chinese, speak perfect English.
Friendly service.

We used to order from here all the time, but then they starting making mistakes every time we ordered. We asked for no peanuts or shellfish due to allergies, and they still put them in. It happened so often we started ordering from another place. We tried them again today and were told there would be no mistakes. Wrong! While the dishes were peanut and shellfish-​free, they gave us spring rolls instead of egg rolls. The manager said the employee was new. She said we could have a driver bring us egg rolls in 1.5 hours or get a credit. A credit doesn’t work if you never eat here again!

This restaurant came recommended as having the best Chinese food he’d ever had by a colleague at work. So, because I wanted to see what kind of food we’d be ordering for our work luncheon my husband and I drove across town and tried the food.
We chose stir fried vegetables, the house fried fried rice and salt and pepper seafood.
All were well cooked, except some of the seafood stuck together and we found the coating on the salt and ppper seafood a little crunchy. The vegetables were flavourful and well steamed and stir fried with a good variety and bite sized peices. The rice had shrimp, barbequed pork and chicken, the latter two were a tad dry and little bland, but it was well cooked and less spicy than we’re used to.
The service in the restaurant was very good. The restaurant was clean, decorated for Chinese New Year which starts next week but there was a cold shift in the air as if a door was being opened and closed in the back at regular intervals. Well known for it’s take out fare, it’s perfect for it’s location of Willowpark/​Mapleridge where the majority of residents enjoy the same kind of Canadianized Chinese food that is filling, plentiful and cooked with less spice than food from a more authetnic Cantonese style restaurant.
It was the majority of customers who picked up, and the other diners who ate in confirmed our suspicions. Not a chinese cusotmer in the place.
We had enough leftovers for my daughter to try. She liked the crunchiness of the salt and pepper seafood. My girlfriend tried the seafood and fell in love with the scallops and liked the rice too.
Would I eat at the Golden Gate again? Yes, definitely with friends who live in the Southeast and don’t like or can’t have much spice in their food.
Would I recommend it? Defintely would, but not to anyone who is Chinese or someone looking for an adventure in dining.
Golden Gate is solid, predictable but just a little higher in price than your average Chinese food restaurant. This is probably because the neighbourhood it serves can bear the slightly higher price.
Go in looking for a little bit of the 1960s style Chinese food and you won’t be disappointed and you can even have a reasonably priced drink with your meal!

We have ordered from Golden Gate since moving here awhile back, and we are never disappointed. The staff are friendly, food arrives faster than they suggest it will, and it’s always very hot and delicious. There’s a pretty nice selection to pick from, and they are definitely one of the better choices we’ve found in Calgary.