Cheng Du Chinese Restaurant Review
I eat at Cheng Du at least once a month. The building is a very familiar one to anyone who drives Route 9 in Westboro - it has the two giant Foo Dog statues out front. The restaurant has wonderful, large fishtanks inside, with several placed right beside the booths you eat in. The booths are typically red vinyl with a white-tablecloth table. The place manages to look clean, elegant, and family friendly all at once. Fresh flowers are usually found on every table and on side tables as well.One of the reasons I eat at Cheng Du so frequently is that my 'networking' group eats here once a month. The restaurant is perfect. It's centrally located, the back booth we get is quiet so we can easily talk, and the food is delicious. Service is always prompt and courteous. We have some pretty unique flavor issues in our group - one woman hates spicy food, another cannot eat wheat products. The staff is understanding and makes sure that everything is just right.
You might think of Chinese food as bogged down in sugary sauces, and having little flavor. Cheng Du does a great job of showing how fresh and flavorful Chinese can be. We get a wide variety of dishes for our dinners out and pass them around to share. There are dark sauces, light sauces, items that are grilled, items that are steamed. The menu is huge and we could easily order an entire set of different dishes each time without having to repeat a dish. However, we've settled on some favorites that we all love and share. The dish sizes are quite large and there are always extras to take home.
The restaurant really is great for any number of situations. If you're going on a date, sit by the fishtank and it gives you something instantly fun to talk about. If you're going with a family, the larger booths are great for fitting everyone, and the selection of dishes means that everyone will find something they like. If you're going for a special night out, the flowers and general "attentiveness" of the staff will make the evening special.
Highly recommended!
2012 update
In 2012, Cheng Du went through a fairly massive overhaul of both look and menu. I'd been coming here for years and years, so I was definitely interested in seeing what they had done. I've eaten here twice so far with the new look.
First, where it used to be fairly casual, the new look is definitely more upscale. The wine area is quite lovely. The Chinese area features some "privacy booths" where you are enclosed on three sides with a semi-see-through wall. This is now definitely somewhere you could go on a nice date and feel comfortable with it.
The service and staff, though, have not quite made it through this transition. Numerous small errors abound. My friend asked for brown rice, and it was forgotten. I asked for a chenin blanc (a white wine) - and a little while later a waiter came by and asked, "did you want a chateauneuf-du-pape?" (a red wine). Eventually they figured out what was going on. I didn't want any tea, and they poured me some without asking. So now I had cooling tea sitting near me all dinner long. Little things like that. Again, it would be one thing if this had always been happening - but we never had any issues at all before. Maybe they've brought on new wait staff? Maybe they're being over-stretched by the new volume of diners? The parking lot definitely seems more full than it's been in a while.
The food is good, although it's fair to say that most of it comes with sugary sauces or fried. That was fine for their previous plastic-tablecloth style, but I expect a bit better options with the higher end presentation they are going for now. I am trying to eat more healthy and it takes me a while to go through the current menu to find something palatable but also not coated in sugar-sauce. I tend to end up with the steamed chicken with broccoli which, while healthy, isn't very flavorful. There's no fresh veggie types of options in the appetizer area. I'd like to see even a few more items on here that have a healthy feel to them.
Again, clearly I like it here. I've been going here regularly for years. I think they have a few tweaks they should make, now that they have this new look-and-feel, to have their decor, menu, and service match.
Menu: Quite large, with a variety of selections
Wine List: Good selection
Dress: Anything from dressed up to jeans, tshirts and baseball caps
Staff: Friendly, fast and flexible
Restaurant Review Listings
Boston Restaurant Reviews
Connecticut Restaurant Reviews
Framingham - Natick Restaurant Reviews
Sturbridge Restaurant Reviews
Shrewsbury Street Restaurant Reviews
Waltham Restaurant Reviews
Worcester Restaurant Reviews
Outside Dining near Worcester
Top 10 Restaurants near Worcester
Romantic Restaurants near Worcester
Sangria Recipes
Wine Basics
Reviews from Nantucket, Florida Keys and Las Vegas
Lisa Shea Homepage