ChoLon – Downtown

Love. Chicken sliders and Chili soup dumplings and fried rice should win an award.

I have had my share of soup dumplings. I tried the General Cho’s chili dumplings. The dough was decent. The filling was nothing reminiscent of soup it was more thick and quite unlike any other dumpling I have tried from Denver to Asia. The chicken wontons were amazing though.

Food was really good but the 6% fee PLUS the automatic 20% gratuity added before tax (!) is not okay. Pay your employees. If I’m paying $30 for fried rice you can afford to pay them a living wage. I probably won’t be back

We came in for Valentine’s Day and ordered appetizers and mains. We left pretty disappointed. Service was off the whole night. We received the wrong dish once, which was corrected, but later it seemed like one of our entrees was never actually placed. We finished everything else and then waited about 30 minutes for that final dish to come out. Our server also felt cold and a bit argumentative when my wife was trying to clarify the order. We were told the dumplings and buns were dim sum style and that we could customize quantities, but when we tried to do that, we got pushback instead of help. The bigger issue was the food itself. Almost everything was overwhelmingly sour. Instead of adding balance or brightness, the acidity dominated the dishes and covered up the other flavors. It made the meal feel one dimensional rather than layered and thoughtful. The only good dish was the toast, but it felt more like dessert than an appetizer and it wasn’t described well at all by the menu. The curry duck had a duck that was cooked well, but the curry sauce was so sour like they forgot to add palm sugar and doubled the tamarind or whatever acid component. They also added these pickled pears on top that just made every bite so sour. The pork belly noodle bowl was especially frustrating. There was barely any pork belly and not much noodle. It was mostly egg and a huge pile of bean sprouts with a greasy, broken sauce. It just did not feel well executed. To add to that, there was also a 6% fee added to the bill. The menu language made it sound like that cost was already built into menu pricing, so it was surprising to see it added on separately at the end. I’m kicking myself for not asking for some sort of compensation given the poor experience. Overall, the prices were extremely high for what we received. There are more casual local spots doing similar dishes with better balance, better portions, and better service for half the price. I would not come back given the experience.

My husband and I went here for Valentine’s Day. We’ve been to Cho Lon twice before and both times had a great experience. In fact, it used to be our favorite restaurant in Denver. This experience was a letdown. It took more than 15 minutes for our server to come to our table and introduce themselves, and that was only after we got up and asked to be served. People were being served all around us. We actually thought our table had slipped through the cracks and no one was assigned to us. Service the rest of the night was incredibly slow. I understand holidays are busier for restaurants…but this was painfully slow. Like no one anticipated that Valentine’s Day requires greater staffing. We asked about the 5 course meal, but our server told us it wasn’t available for Valentine’s Day. Why not put out a different menu if what’s on your current menu isn’t available? At the end of our night, there was a mandatory 20% tip. We always tip 20%, but it felt forced after the very poor service we had. I don’t think we’ll be returning here any time soon, especially not for a holiday or special occasion again.