At its worst, it's a minefield of extremes where scathing one-star reviews have photo evidence supplied for subpar employees and others justify tanking a restaurant's average rating because "they don't have any Splenda only the very bad tasting sweet n low."
But what's worse? One star for Sweet N' Low or a fluffed-up five-star from a close relative? The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.
Yelp can be a necessary evil for modern dining, but for authentic Chinese cuisine in particular, it's a lifeline.
In 2022, Freddie Wong (@rocketjump on TikTok), posted a seemingly controversial video about his golden rule for dining at authentic Chinese restaurants: They must be rated 3.5 stars on Yelp.
He starts the video by saying that this rule only applies to major metropolitan areas, and then goes on to say that the rating system is firm. "Exactly 3.5. Not 3. Not 4. 3.5 Ssars is the sweet spot for authentic Chinese food," he says in the video, but not without proof.
"P.F. Changs, 2.5-stars — bad. Obviously. Obviously bad," he says, then goes on to drag Din Tai Fung, a famous Taiwanese dumpling house. "Four stars. Too many stars. Too many white people like it. The service is too good and the food is not as good as it could be."
Instead, he insists the food at Shanghai Dumpling House and Happy Duck House, both rated 3.5 stars, are going to have worse service, but significantly better food.
Why is this the case?
"Here's my theory," Wong explains. "Cultural expectations for service are different in Asia. They're just not as proactive. They're not gonna come up to you. They're not gonna actively give you refills. You need to flag down the waiters."
So while Yelpers ding all these restaurants for bad service, the food score makes up for it.
"So you end up with 3.5 stars. It's the sweet spot, trust me," Wong concludes in the video.
All the restaurants he listed were in a different metro area than Dallas, so we decided we wanted to test this theory in our own stomping grounds.
First, we needed to lay ground rules:
1. The restaurant has to be a firm 3.5-star rating. Not 3.4 or 3.6.
2. No chain restaurants.
3. Based only on Yelp reviews.
Finding the right rating was tedious since the only filtering options on Yelp are "Recommended," "Highest Rated," and "Most Reviewed."
No less than 30 pages later, we found our spot, and the reviews of Taste of Chengdu on Old Denton Road in Carrollton were more than enough confirmation:
"This should easily be a four-star place. Why the negative reviews? Taste of Chengdu has consistently served good food and good enough service. Sometimes hard to flag down the servers, but once you get their attention, they've always gotten us what we want," wrote Bob in his review.
"Food was decent," wrote A.N. for a three-star rating, "Was expecting an authentic Chinese food waitress didn't speak lick of English so it was hard to ask anything. She just stared me down when I tried to ask something so just pointed to the dish."
This was followed by a five-star from Yaya L., "I am from Chengdu, this restaurant is probably the best I've had in the U.S. regarding Sichuan food. The cook Mr. Feng is from Chengdu and he's very very friendly and nice. Would definitely come back."
Taste of Chengdu was perfect from the second we walked in the door. We weren't greeted, so we were off to a great start. There was a massive ordering screen to the left of the hostess stand, which we poked around on. No less than a minute later, a host came out to greet us, starting with an apology since he didn't see us.
At first, we were the only guests, and service started strong with thoughtful recommendations. But after a handful of families came through, things unraveled. Thankfully, service slipped and became slow. We did, in fact, have to flag down a server, but — as Wong hypothesized — the food more than made up for it.
Three years later Wong's video has amassed almost 11 million views with 2 million likes affirming his claims.
Some comments prove a little neglect is worth it to get the goods. Like this one with 74,000 likes: "My friend and I went to a hole-in-the-wall dumpling place and tried to order everything and the waiter got mad and said 'That's too much!'"
So next time the waiter ignores you like your high school boyfriend, you're probably in the right place for some pork ribs.
Other 3.5 Star Chinese Restaurants in Dallas
Tian Tian18101 Preston Road
Garden Restaurant
3555 W Walnut St.
Pan Acean Restaurant
777 S. MacArthur Blvd.
