Gator Suyaki

More like 2.5 stars. I wanted to like this place, but i was just overall annoyed with our dinner experience. We tried coming for an early lunch, but they weren’t open at 11 a.m. — their stated business hours. There wasn’t even any staff there at 11, so idk when they actually started lunch service.
Speaking of service — it’s disorganized, but they try hard. We had three servers try to take our order.
The food style tends to be Szechuan-​based, yet the menu includes many bad attempts at different Asian cuisines. I foolishly ordered the «Korean» spicy pork and it was an abomination. The Szechuan dumplings were kinda good though, thanks for the suggestion, fellow Unilocalers.
1 Hot tea + 1 app + 2 entrees + tax/​tip = $ 45 dinner for two. Overpriced IMO.
BTW, my wife’s fortune cookie called her a man.

No.1 Chinese food in town! Real Chinese food.
Services are great! Nice seat. Gator Suyaki is really a perfect place for friends to chat and enjoy delicious Chinese dishes.

Gator suyaki is a great place for decently priced Chinese food and a nice sit down place, better than the regular take out. Their lunch and dinner specials are on point, ranging from $ 7 – 12 for a nice sized rice bowl or dinner box. Their salt and pepper squid is great! Really fresh and big portions for dinner. Also tried their Korean beef rice bowl on the dinner menu. It was okay, nothing special, but for $ 9, I’ll take it.

An excellent restaurant overall. Everything I’ve ever tried here is very tasty and they give large portions for the money. The food is authentic and flavorful. It’s the best Chinese restaurant that I’ve been to in Gainesville. I’ve done take out and dine in. The only reason that I gave four instead of five stars is because sometimes the service is slow and I think my server even forgot about our table. However, overall this restaurant is top notch. Definitely worth adding to your list of regular restaurants.

A few years back was my first experience with Gator Suyaki. At that time it was a Chinese buffet restaurant with surprisingly good sushi. Today it’s à la carte, but given that a lot of local Chinese students and families appear to eat there, that’s a good sign that things haven’t gone awry.
Ordered a couple of appetizers including hot and sour soup, sesame balls with red bean paste, and pork shu mai. The hot and sour soup was rich and very flavorful, definitely a step up from local New York style Chinese take-​out. The sesame balls had been freshly fried and were piping hot and delicious. The shu mai was decent, but not the best I’ve had. Also I really should probably pick up some Chinese (the language) already because our obviously native Chinese waitress made a slight flub when we asked for some sweet soy sauce on the side but got duck sauce instead (forgivable though, it tasted plum-​based and was very good).
Main course consisted of salt and pepper squid for me, and spicy Korean beef for the wife. The former arrived nice and hot but a bit too oily, and a few of the bits of squid had a telltale propane flavor, but the bits of onion and pepper flakes made for a tasty dish. The latter was delicious with tasty slices of tender beef, veggies, and a fiery red sauce, just a bit saltier than I would’ve liked.
We hadn’t tried them at the time, but it appears Gator Suyaki has steam tables set up with portable propane stoves, presumably to heat clay pots or keep soup nice and hot. Next time I’m tempted to try them, though beware if you have a sore lower back because these have bar stools for seating.
The menu is extensive, and the small glimpse we got was solid. Yummy House to me is still the local champ, but Gator Suyaki comes in a close second, just ahead of a local hole-​in-​the-​wall Chinese take out I frequent, and far outpacing Panda Express with their fair flavor but meager portions.

good and authentic place to go if you like spicy. staff are nice, and good for friends gathering, dating. etc

Soooooo yummy and not remotely Americanized! We shared three dishes: dry wok beef (superbly seasoned with just the right amount of heat and fresh veggies); leeks and smoked pork (a delicious non-​spicy dish); and the braised duck house style (tasty, but be careful with the bones). I’ll definitely be back!

Real authentic chinese food that you can get in Gainesville. No other restaurant has come close! They have some dishes that are actually spicy and has an awesome kick to it. My favorite is the Szechuan boiled fish fillet and Chongqing chili chicken (the best spicy fried chicken you can get). I love this place. Its my favorite chinese place in town. Their green tea has flowers in them too!

This place doesn’t deserve the rating it has right now. It’s improved a ton, and the food is some of the best in Gainesville, especially for the price. Anything salt and pepper is amazing, and the chili stuff is also excellent. Humongous portions, too.

We went to this place couple of times and ordered home delivery a few times. It’s the best Chinese food in Gainesville. I really like their General Tso’s Chicken and General Tso’s Shrimp. Price is also very decent. I highly recommend this place.
PS: The only drawback is this place is too casual. Though the waitresses are helpful, some of them don’t understand/​speak English. And once our waitress took our order without writing it down and came back because she forgot couple of the order items. I found it really unprofessional. That’s the reason for 4 out of 5 rating.

Nice Chinese restaurant. The food is quite authentic compared to the average Chinese restaurants in the U.S.

This place rocks my socks. For those of you who gives this place 3 stars or lower, man your taste buds must be lacking. If your taste buds crave Bentos or Dragonfly sushi, than this is not the place for you. It has a depth of flavor that you cannot find at the above mentioned restaurants, and not even at Yummy house. Yes, I understand that service is tough here. Yes, the staff rarely speaks English and yes, you might have to wait a while if their busy, but man I would wait here for 2 hours and not be disappointed. With that said, the main reason I like this place above all Chinese places in Gainesville, their meats are fresh and not soaked in baking soda to make it tender and expand. Fake cough… Yummy House.
I get fairly simple dishes here. Nothing too exciting but man their just so good. The Mongolian Beef is amazing. It has this smoky flavor to the beef that makes me want to mount a couple horses, and shoot my bow and arrow and conquer most of Asia and western Europe. Who knew a simple take out dish at most Chinese takeouts, can be reinvented here with onions and peppers that taste this amazing.
Salt and Pepper shrimp or squid. Man oh man. Its like I just got back from Shrimping in the St johns River (Late July-​Early October-​for those of you who want to go) and cooked it myself. Lightly breaded and deep fried, than lightly salted and peppered when its hot. What an amazing simple dish. Man oh man.
House Garlic Pork Rib. Another simple dish that is truly amazing. Pan fried Pork ribs drizzled with garlic sauce. The smokiness and tenderness of the pork is indescribable. Even my staff, who loves mayonnaise and butter sanwiches and anything drizzled in buffalo sauce (a testament to their defined taste buds-​pun) love this dish.
You can also try their pork and beef guts dishes (authenticity) or even their hot pots. Owners are there everyday, so you can see their dedication at work. Love this place.

It is supposed to be sichuan style but they changed to northeast style and I want to say it is actually better and healthier. Eggplant pot is a must every time we went. Recommended.

One of the three spots where you can really enjoy some authentic Chinese food. The other two: Small house, Yummy house. I am a Chinese so don’t question my authority LOL.
They have a huge menu, most of them are decent food. I would recommend cumin lamb, kung pao chicken (definitely not the same as Panda Express) and their dry pot dish (like pork intestine). Their hotpot is pretty popular when they first introduced, but I think that is a little bit expensive.
They also offer American-​Chinese food which I never touched. But as far as I know, their bento box is also good.
I would give it a three star if I am in New York or San Fransisco. But you can’t ask for more for a college town. So, overall

I love this place! If you like spicy food, this is definitely a restaurant to try.
My friend & I always get the same dishes bc whenever we try to deviate from what we know it’s never as good. The Sichuan spicy boiled pork (or even beef) is one of my favorites! It is oily bc they use a chili oil to make it even spicier but the flavors are great. The beef in dry wok is also really good. It comes in this cute mini wok over a tiny candle that acts as a heat source so your entrée stays hot as you eat. The third entrée we always get may not appeal to a lot of people but it’s so good! It’s called chongqing chili pork intestine and we always ask for it extra crispy. the intestines are a little fatty but the favors are very good. It looks spicier than it actually is because it’s cooked with dried chili peppers.
I give it a 4 bc not everything on the menu is great. My friend & I get the 3 dishes that have never failed us every time we ordered them.

The lunch menu is the value deal of the city. I don’t know where else you can get such a large amount of food for $ 6.99 Their Bento box is over-​stuffed with main dish, rice, spring roll, crab rangoon, and sesame ball.
The good: the food. It is hot, fresh, and flavorful. Also huge quantities.
The bad: It is slow. Don’t come here on your lunch break, for a fast dining experience. The price to pay for freshly made food, but still needs to be mentioned.
Quality authentic Chinese cuisine. Not the warmed-​over Americanized versions passed off at other places. This is the real deal.

I lived in Gainesville for 2 years. It is best Chinese restaurant in Gainesville, especially if you like spicy food.

Great food! ⁵⁄₅
Have been going to Gator Suyaki for dinner with large groups since their re-​opened and I am still a fan. Their food is great, atmosphere is wonderful, and the size of their dishes are perfect for family-​style meals. Also a plus that they do not charge you extra for rice like other places in Gainesville and there is no limit on how much rice you can get.
Service ⁴⁄₅
I agree with Jon C.‘s post. Service can definitely be improved. Gator Suyaki has a very large menu so I am sure the staff will need some time to get used to every dish but it doesn’t hurt to ask the chef and get back to the customer with an adequate answer. This is definitely a place you should go to if you aren’t crunched on time. Sometimes the food may take a while to be ready or the staff is too busy taking care of other things. This is not a fast food Chinese restaurant, be prepared to wait 20 – 30 minutes before your table begins to pile with dishes.

Having returned and eaten at Gator Suyaki twice over the weekend, I feel an updated review is much in order now. As my older reviews will tell the tale, Gator Suyaki in my experience went from being an impressive and authentic Chinese restaurant circa 2011 to substandard in 2013. I’ve heard various explanations for this, from the competition from Small House and Yummy House stealing their customers to their original chef leaving. Maybe it was a combination of all of the above. However now, it seems things are back on track.
The menu is about the same though the actual printing of the menu seems new and better organized. They have mainly Peking-​style, Hunan, and northern Chinese cuisine plus some Cantonese dishes and also Americanized Chinese dishes. They claim to still have dim sum but I was there for dinner (twice) so I am not sure if they do actual dim sum during lunch or what: the menu does have some starters that look like dim sum items on it though.
What has changed in the best of ways is the quality: it’s back on point. The beef with young bamboo, Shui Zhu Yu fish – which they call «Sichuan boiled fish» but is the same thing, dry wok beef, and cold cucumber salad were all high-​quality and authentic although the cucumber salad at Small House is better – and what I make at home I feel is better, as it’s a dish I commonly make when I cook Chinese food. It wasn’t spicy enough here and too much cilantro, but still authentic I’d say. The dry wok beef was spot-​on though and the beef with young bamboo was certainly fine as well. The Shui Zhu Yu fish, which is one of several styles of classic fin-​fish recipes they offer, was also very good. Most patrons both nights I was there were Chinese and everything I saw being served looked and smelled very good. The service seems predicated on where you sit: my friend and I the first night had good service and were in an area where there were a number of other diners, but when I went alone, I was seated in Siberia and the service was slow and disorganized.
All in all, they are adept competition for Small House (their style of Chinese is closer overall to Small House’s than Yummy House’s) and seem to be back in the game.

For Gainesville, this is the only authentic style Chinese restaurant that I can sit in a booth and be comfortable. It is not San Fransisco Chinatown or any large metropolitan area, it is Gainesville and this is as good as it gets.
There are some customers that appear to be the Panda crowd. They have American-​Chinese style food for you, too. I also avoid their Hong Kong style dishes, because they seem to be a little off.
Keep in mind that I have only dined here for dinner and on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. So, I don’t know what goes on during lunch hours on weekdays. All I know, is that whenever I come to Gainesville (about once a month), I come to Gator Suyaki every time for delicious Szechuan style dishes.
Like I said before; best food I have had here is when I order from a Sichuan/​Szechuan formula. Don’t know what other dishes to order? Then, search Szechuan cuisine on the internet and look for the staple dishes to try. The food tends to have a Shanghainese twist, which means sweet as well as other attributes.
1. Cold Cucumber Salad (served cold)
2. Sliced Beef in Mala Sauce (served cold)
3. Wontons in Chili Oil (my favorite dish), sometimes called «Spicy Wonton Soup.» Not a soup at all.
4. Fish Filet in Chili Oil
5. Snow Pea Leaves with Garlic or Ong Choi with Garlic
There is a video of these dishes on my food vlog to get the full experience:
The Wontons in Chili Oil are what brought me to this place to begin with and still remain my favorite dish. The balance of sweet and salty is perfect. But, what puts the entire dish over the edge is the chewy-​ness of the wonderful wonton skin. The texture is… ahhhhhh… I’m crying right now. From happiness. Sometimes, I will even order an additional plate of pan fried dumplings to use up the rest of the chili oil.
The restaurant name has a much different meaning in Chinese, written on the menu. Would someone please translate? I think it is «_​_​_​Garden.» But, I don’t now for sure.