Tasteful Delight Chinese Cafe

I am always in search of great kung pao chicken and they have the best I have found in this area. Their lunch specials are a great deal.

This place is definitely one of my favorite takeout/​delivery joints in the area. I’m sad that I’ve since moved away.
Here’s my story about a time when I lived in the City of Pentagon. The first time I came here, I was very excited to see non-​American-​greasy-​Chinese food items on the menu, so I ordered the Taiwanese spicy beef noodle soup and the Shanghai eggrolls. It was an unequivocally bad move. The noodles were fine, but unappealingly bland. The Shanghai eggrolls, however, tasted like deep-​fried refrigerator. Clearly, no one ordered these except for me, and the product didn’t get turned around enough, so it’s probably been sitting in the freezer for a while. I might have cried. I’m not sure. I try not to recall that memory too often.
Needless to say I avoided this place for many moons.
Ok, so fast forward some time – and after receiging much hassling from my friends/​neighbors (friendbors?), I decide to give it a second chance. The reviews were near-​unanimous. And all of my friendbors expressed their admiration for Tasteful Delight’s superhuman speed, and overall deliciousness and quality.
Well, I’m happy to report that giving it a second try was the best decision ever.
I ordered the General Tso’s chicken and the sesame chicken and my mind was thoroughly blown. To this day, I cannot figure out their physics-​defying ability to provide super-​saucy nuggets of fried chicken that WAS STILL CRISPY when it was DELIVERED to me. Let me repeat that, Unilocalers, the fried chicken wasn’t crispy when I was served it at the restaurant. The restaurant had easily 15 – 20 minutes to get from their door to my apartment building, and somehow the fried breading wasn’t soggy and falling off the chicken.
I cried tears of joy. Declared it witchcraft. There’s no other way to explain this phenomenon.
Lesson learned, Unilocalers. As with many things in life, your first impression may not always be the most accurate one, so it doesn’t hurt to continue to collect input from trusted friendbors, and to always keep an open mind… for physics defying greasy chicken.
The end.
Full disclosure: I have since tried many other food items here, and I would recommend the beef chow fun and the Singapore rice noodles. Both are super good as well, but in the interest of good storytelling, I wanted to end it on the transformational fried chicken note.

First time ordering here and the food was amazing. I ordered lunch specials of Hunan chicken and General Taos and both were delicious. Will definitely I
order from here again.

Best Chinese around! REAL chicken used! Very fast too… Pick up order was ready in 5 minutes. It’s the only Chinese in the DMV I will go to! No frills, just great food

We order from Tasteful Delight all the time. Very quick for carryout or delivery, and very consistent in quality. Our favorites are shrimp fried rice, combination lo mein, and hunan chicken. The egg rolls are also delicious. Pretty standard to above average chinese takeout!

I usually order from here all the time. Tonight, however, I’m terribly disappointed. First was told an hr for delivery and they took longer than one hr. Then we paid extra to have wontons in our egg drop soup (4 to be exact) and there were barely 2 in the soup… that cost us an extra buck. Then we got zero duck sauce or mustard, that’s unacceptable as those are the main staples in condiments for Chinese food. The vegetable lo mein was only ok… very lacking in flavor. So not happy and likely not to return again.

Pretty good American style Chinese food. I used to live across the street and would pick up takeout every so often. I tried a variety of their chicken items and most were solid. I like their basil fried rice. Overall it’s a little pricey for carry out, but still a good option.

My go-​to for chinese take out in the area. Hunan chicken is delicious. Delivery times are usually about an hour, but they tell you that up front and the food is hot when it arrives.

This place is consistently delicious. We order carry out and delivery is fast. I recommend their steamed vegetables and shrimp.

My favorite would be the hot hot basil noodle soup, the seaweed salad, and the garden roll.
I am only giving 1 star because of their meats. I think they’re being frugal with their meats so they grind up what they have left and homogenize them with what I think to be corn starch. The texture, and the stickiness you feel just sends a chill.

I ordered delivery, and was told that it would be 45 minutes to an hour, but my food arrived in 25 minutes. The food is delivered very hot, and large portions are provided. Most of the other reviews here have hit upon the good and the bad for this place, but as far as I am concerned the good outweigh the bad. I will be ordering from here again and again. The one star I didn’t give was for the crab wantons (as their menu states). They were over cooked, and did not have much taste, but the rest of my meal was awesome!

3.5 stars, rounding up to 4.
8:05 PM Walked in and ordered
8:10 PM Order ready
Needed a quick dinner close to our hotel in Pentagon City. General Tso’s chicken is good. It’s lightly battered and has a nice crunch (not overly crunchy how I like it). The sauce had good flavor and was spicy enough, and there was just enough to coat the chicken. My boyfriend is a General Tso’s snob, and he gave it a pretty good rating. Dinner portion comes with rice and came out to $ 13. For American Chinese food, that’s pretty expensive, hence the 3.5 stars.
Parking was difficult. There was metered parking on the street, but not a lot of it. Parking lot for the mall nearby, but I’m sure that’s not free.

We ordered last night. First time having Chinese since we’ve been here. It was pretty good for takeout. It was very fresh I kept saying as I was eating out of my boyfriends dish.
I ordered the orange chicken which was crunchy and not mushy but almost too crunchy and not enough sauce. I wasn’t the biggest fan of my dish but the 4 stars is for my boyfriends chicken and broccoli dish — it was delicious. He also ordered the beef lo mein which was equally delicious.
I was pretty surprised that there were no egg rolls, soup, soda anything, I mean that’s a staple when you order Chinese takeout. So without any of the extras (they don’t give you duck sauce either :(), just for the 2 of us it came to $ 34 which I would say is expensive for takeout. They took an hour from the time I called which didn’t bother me but we also weren’t in a rush.
I guess the next time we feel like ordering Chinese, I’ll try another place just to see how it matches up. Hope this helps!

This is my go-​to Chinese place in the DMV area. I was skeptical at first, as there aren’t really any «damn that’s good» Chinese places in this area, but since my first visit I’ve ordered from them various times. I’ve dined in and gotten it delivered, and I find it very quaint. CNN is always playing on the TV.
My favorites are the hot & sour soup, chicken fried rice, and basil chicken.
Don’t get the spring rolls unless they come with the lunch special. Dumplings are okay, but they’re not my favorite.
A huge plus is that the portions are very generous — two people can share one dish and be satisfied.

Tonight I ordered delivery after growing tired of eating various soups at home while fighting the flu & laryngitis the past few weeks. I was impressed with how quickly my food arrived, but the quality was just OK.
I ordered the following:
— Egg Drop Soup — terrible; I poured it out, as the only taste was egg, nothing more
— Sesame Chicken — decent; not the best, not the worst
— Moo Shi Pork — saving for leftovers for tomorrow :)
It was nice to vary it up from my standard soups, but nothing to write home about.

First time ordering from here so far the phone call to order was just rude! I tell them I’ve never ordered from here I give my order and then ask for it to be repeated back and I get ok bye click… let’s hope the food makes up for the bad service. also we live 1.4 miles away and was told delivery will be an hr… should I worry?? will post an update when the food arrives! Stay tuned!
Update 01/​07/​2015
To update this I am happy to say this place was pretty good! Food was hot everything ordered came kids sat in silence and ate then asked for seconds! The lighter fare food had. Good taste chicken and mixed veggies steamed was not bland! So far I would recommend this place to south Arlingtonians! Very good not that expensive for a family of four! Yummy

The best Chinese I’ve had since moving here. They are always nice. Sometimes their wait does get long, especially if you get delivery, but it’s worth it. We havnt had a bad meal here.

We did takeout and the delivery was pretty fast with the food remaining piping hot. But the best thing was that the food was great! We had the shrimp and scallops in basil sauce. It was really good. We also tried the hunan chicken and while I would have preferred it to be spicier, the ingredients were quality. Only reason they lose a star is they didn’t take a credit card for delivery.
I have lived and traveled in Asia… so pretty picky on Chinese. This was solid.

I know this isn’t saying much, but this is the best Chinese food I’ve had in the Arlington (and NoVA generally) area. Though it’s very casual (not at all a sit-​down) restaurant, the food is prepared well. It tastes homemade and doesn’t feel oily. The best part is that the food is CHEAP for lunch — you can easily order a lot of food and pay less than $ 10. I ordered the hot and sour soup and the beef and broccoli. My food came with crispy noodles, white rice, and an egg roll. It was plenty of food for me to have leftovers for another meal. My only qualm was that the hot and sour soup was on the salty side, but the beef and broccoli was delicious. Probably the best I’ve had in a long time. The food didn’t leave my stomach feeling upset, as many other Chinese restaurants have in the past. I will certainly visit again!

Great Chinese restaurant in the Pentagon Row area.
Relatively cheap, and decent portions. I’ve walked in once, and I’ve had it delivered once.
Delivery was pretty fast, the food is VERY good. I had the General Tso Chicken with fried rice. The General Tso Chicken had just the right amount of spice to give you that little tingle you need, and the sweetness that will have you craving for more.
No need to go to Chinatown any more when you I have it right here.