Asian Garden - Athens

Good food for the price. We were the only ones inside, seems kind of desolate.

I’ve had some pretty bad Chinese food in my life, but this was by far the worst. The dumplings and noodles tasted like playdoh. They were super slimey and just not great.

I ate at all the Asian restaurants in Athens TX this week and Asian Garden was the best. Fresh food full of flavor at good prices.

The dumplings where chewy and slimey. The rice noodles had no flavor and seemed just be be re-heated. Low main came hot but also very greasy and slimy. Chicken in it was bland and wasn't able to finish it.

Today I went here with my wife for the first time. I saw that this place offered “Japanese Food” in addition to their Chinese Cuisine. I lived in Japan for some time so this peaked my interest due to my military service. I have also had experience working as a sushi chef for some time. We were greeted and seated promptly, drink order was taken and brought quickly. The iced tea was very clear (not dark for those who like strong tea). I ordered Miso Soup to start, the Lettuce Wrap with Chicken, and the Lunch Sushi Sashimi Combo. My Miso Soup was clear, like water and had virtually no flavor. The dead giveaway that whoever prepared this dish doesn’t understand what miso soup is was when I discovered white onion in the soup. Moving on to the main dish. We waited approximately 30-40 minutes before my sushi and sashimi came out. The fish was barely cold, and one piece of which I’m assuming was salmon at one point looked like a cat gnawed on it. I smelled of one of the pieces of salmon and it smelled rancid and requested the owner to smell it, so he did and said “It is fine, this is fresh. We froze it this morning.” My next question was “So all of this fish is frozen?” His reply was “yes, we freeze it”. I asked him to take the plate away because I refuse to eat frozen “sushi/sashimi”. My lettuce wrap never made it to the table. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no such thing as fresh-frozen food. My wife ordered Two California Rolls and a Yummy Yummy Roll. The California Roll looked okay, although she didn’t try it due to the trauma I had just endured. She was more concerned with comforting me in my time of loss and grief. The Yummy Yummy roll to my knowledge, is a deep fried roll, however, in this case it was not which threw my wife off. Moral of this story is folk’s, don’t order the sushi or sashimi here folks unless you want to end up in the ER and for goodness sake don’t try the Sushi Nachos, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I have now entered into counseling due to this traumatic event and will keep you all posted on how treatment goes. Best of luck y’all!