Royal Inn Oriental Cuisine Reviews

Restaurant is excellent fantastic food great atmosphere great customer service outstanding if you want to great food come here the owner Rex is fantastic very friendly courteous kind best Chinese food in town. The food is always fresh and hot nothing is ever frozen

Love the food at Royal Inn and everyone is so nice. Great prices for lunch and dinner. They even give soup with to go orders. I like the sesame chicken and triple delight. If you in Med Center it's worth the trip.

i don't think there's anything super spectacular about this restaurant, but it is clean and servers are friendly.

This is a great place for lunch. The food is very good and so are the prices. Everyone was very friendly. Big dining room and lots of natural light. Had the combination Lo Mein plate with chicken, beef and shrimp.

I've eaten here twice now when I've visited San Antonio and can't wait to go back on my next visit. The food is amazing! We started our meal with a wonderful jasmine tea and they brought it in a thermos type of container so it stayed nice and hot, and there was a LOT of it. We then ordered the chicken corn soup and it was just really good. For appetizers we had the crab Rangoon and it was well done with lots of filling. Then we had the shrimp toast. That was totally AMAZING and I highly recommend it. Our entrees were the wide noodles with beef (my favorite of all), happy family (spice it up with some hot chili oil and WOW!) and combination egg foo yung (perfectly cooked). The whole meal was amazing. Service was wonderful and the atmosphere was relaxing. It was a cold rainy night and this was the perfect antidote. And the icing on the cake is that the prices are VERY reasonable with generous portions.

I thought I saw Ming Tsai when we walked in the place, but it was just the Asian phenotype that made up the wait help and the individual that greeted us with a welcoming smile. The dining room is nice and bright with nary a lacquered folded fan nor golden dragon statue in evidence. The seating area has an inviting comfortable elegance to it that easily draws you in. There were a number of lunch specials in addition to the regular lunch menu. First time here and an impossible number of entrees to chose from. Included with all the lunches is a choice of soup; egg drop, wonton, or hot and sour soup, eggroll or crab rangoon, and fried or steamed rice. Noodle dishes do not come with rice. Service is snappy and refills are on time. Wonton soup was as good as any I have had. The lo mein with soft noodles was scrumptious with a slightly smokey flavor from the wok and prepared with plenty of protein including shrimp, chicken and beef. The shrimp were the least favorite of the ingredients . . . just not the taste of fresh gulf shrimp. Beef and chicken were tender and juicy. The eggroll was really a crunchy spring roll that was tasty and perfectly done. Portions are generous and inexpensive for lunch. Believe all the positive reviews you see here as they are on the money. Now that we know, will be anxious to try one of the many other lunch specials on the menu. available.

My mother and I visited the restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. This is our favorite Chinese food restaurant. The restaurant was not full, but the servers were professional polite, and prompt. The owner even helped my mother to place her cane in an appropriate place at our table. The atmosphere is always welcoming. The service is consistent, the food is always fresh and delicious, and the prices are reasonable. We will always return to this restaurant.

I judge a Chinese restaurant first by their hot and sour soup. Theirs is different, peppery, and delish! The sauce the triple delight came in was delish. First real good Chinese I’ve found in San Antonio, and I’ve been here 5 years. Oh and their lunch menu is in the $ 6-8 range.

This restaurant has typical Chinese with a twist...ham in a lot of their employees dishes. The food is always fresh, always hot and has wonderful flavor.

Not real fancy; just really good food and great service. Near the Medical Center and can be very busy at times. Great Soups and they will accommodate special orders. Also live the Triple Delight.

They have a good menu selection, good size portions, good prices, great tasting food and they deliver. What more could you ask for? I will be ordering from them again.

Last Friday I met two colleagues for lunch at the Royal Inn. We ordered our meals and awaited their delivery. Our waitress came with our plates, which were hot, and she wanted us to take the plate and place it on the table. My only problem was that I ordered chicken with vegetables- a plate that is usually temperature hot and not to be trifled with by my unready hands. The waitress waited with the plate in hand as I signalled that she should place it on the table and I would bring it in front of me. She laughed at me! Likewise, when she served our tea and later the refills, she would take her tea pitcher and proceed to spill tea or water on the table each time as opposed to taking out glass and filling it on her tray. Our meals was OK but what was lacking was the service. No one said anything but later we noted the lack of training of the wait staff or perhaps our server was having a bad day!

What a hidden gem of a restaurant. The Royal Inn is in a strip center. If you don't know it is there. You might miss it. I was invited to meet friends there. Seated quickly. Quaint interior. Exceptionally clean and well maintained. We tried three different dishes. All were wonderful. And. The bill was so affordable! I highly recommend. And. If you are lucky. Maybe you will get to meet Uncle Sou.

The lunch specials are awesome. Tea is great. Can't beat the prices ( I attached lunch special menus). Everything is cooked healthy without MSG. If you are feeling adventurous, ask for the authentic oriental menu and order off of it. Family owned from day one, give it a try and it will be your favorite too.

I love the food but the service is a little strange. They have the habit of bring my husband's food first and then mine or vice versa. Rarely do the plates come together.

There are several well-regarded Asian restaurants in the Medical Center, some so popular you have to wait in line on a week day for lunch. However, none of these can compare to the Royal Inn. It is very low key and quiet with tables well spaced from each other. The service is extremely polite and friendly with no exception. They make the best hot and sour soup I have ever tasted and that includes at the Golden Wok, which is one of the places you have to wait for a table. The entrees are very filling and I have never had one in which I was disappointed-. My favorite is the sesame shrimp, which is to die for. I totally recommend getting away from Medical Drive and Wurzbach Rd and come to Babcock Rd. for a very relaxing and enjoyable lunch.

Always have great food ,service is what you expect.I go often and they always greet you like a valuable customer

I guess that I was hoping for more. My wife and I ate at 5;00pm, so we were able to catch the early bird discount and a senior discount. We had wonton soup, 2 egg rolls, two cream cheese wontons, sweet & sour shrimp and Gen Tso’s chicken both w/ rice. Water to drink. The final bill was $22.95 before tip (It costs $25.00 for 3 regular subs at Jimmy John’s). The staff was very friendly. The restaurant was open and family style. The food was bland and tasteless. So we are still in search of some good Chinese food in San Antonio.

I have lived around the corner from this gem for over 20 years and passed it right by in my quest for really good, authentic Chinese food. Silly me! It is clean. The service is fast. The food is delicious - and hot! Always just a little bit better than you have had before. Don't miss out.

This place just took the #1 Chinese spot in SA for us! Casual, clean, friendly service. Good selection of dishes. Everything was fresh & delicious. I had the lemon chicken - perfect! Plus the sesame chicken & shrimp - amazing sauce. Really enjoyed that it came with a soup & small app as part of the dish. Can't wait to go back & try other dishes!

My mother used to take my daughter to the Royal Inn when she was younger. Now my daughter is in her 20's we went to Royal Inn for her birthday. This was my first time there and the food was really good. Also, one of the waiters/owners family had been taking care of my daughter many times over the years. Great environment and the food with the prices are really really good. This restaurant is well worth the trip.

The food was really good. I had chicken vegetables with brown sauce. Good flavor and a good portion. The egg rolls were crispy and not soggy, which I love. The only thing that was slightly off was the service. It is a little slow and the waitstaff are not very friendly. They are not rude, but they are just there to take your order because it is their job. I would go back again in spite of the service, because the food was good.

Stopped in on my way out of San Antonio. Food was served surprisingly fast, service was friendly and never had ask for refills. Food was good. Portions were more than adequate and we ended up with leftovers to take home. Always a plus. And with prices on most of the dishes being under 10 dollars, I was more than satisfied with the final ticket. I recommend this restaurant to anyone looking for a good Chinese meal.

Lunch specials are great and reasonably priced. Expanded menu during dinner. The quality and taste has always been consistent too thru the years ....

We've been enjoying lunch at Royal Inn for years. The food is consistently good, prices are reasonable, and the service is prompt. The decor is basic, but clean, and the dining room has sufficient capacity to usually eliminate waiting for a table. At most Chinese restaurants, chicken is chicken is chicken. There might be two different preparations - stir fry or fried - with only the sauce to differentiate. Not so at Royal Inn. Lemon Chicken features a flattened breast, pan sauteed and presented cut into diagonal slices. General and Sesame entrees feature pounded chicken breast strips, very lightly breaded and flash fried, that arrive in large, tender curls. Sweet/Sour and Orange entrees are the standard inch-square chunks of white meat, covered with a thick batter and fried. We stay away from the non-fried chicken entrees, such as moo goo gai pan, chicken with vegetables, chicken with garlic sauce, and yes, even our typically beloved Triple Delight. Why? The texture of the chicken in these preparations can border on velvety but more often than not hints of being undercooked, and we detect a faint, but unpalatable odor of raw chicken. Maybe it's just an unusual sensitivity on our part, but we've left too many uneaten chicken entrees to give them another try. The shrimp and beef dishes really shine. Shrimp with green beans, with 8 or 9 plump, tender shrimp and a mound of fresh, crisp/tender green beans and a mildly spicy brown sauce, is what we order most often. Kung Pao Shrimp, with lots of crunch from peanuts and celery, is flavorful, as is Mongolian Beef, with its caramelized scallions. Most lunch entrees are priced between $6 and $7 and include choice of soup (forego the basic egg drop or hot and sour in favor of the unusual chicken corn), appetizer (crispy but basic egg roll or skimpily filled rangoons), and rice (fried or steamed). Beverages are NOT included. The only drawback to this consistently good experience is the checkout. The line backs up regularly, but not necessarily due to volume of business. The problems are very slow credit card processing speed and the cashier who is also in charge of taking phone orders ... sometimes interrupting the flow of checkout for several minutes at a time. (Our personal record is a frustrating 12 minutes for total checkout time.) This could be easily resolved, but in the eight years we've been otherwise enjoying lunch at Royal Inn, management hasn't figured out any other configuration for the busy hour between noon and 1 pm. In any case, we'll keep returning!

The place inside isn't fancy, but the food is above average, and great service, reasonably priced. A try if you like chinese.

very good !! good quality and flavor!!clean place! authentic chinese food!

not often do you find a Chinese restaurant that has great service good food and consistent from week to week I go at least once a week for $6.22 you get a complete dinner including soup and egg roll can't complain would go there again and again

Had dinner with kids and their friends! We've been going here for 20 years! Service is consistently great. My favorite house specialty "Special Crispy Beef" is still delicious! Fast service and staff attends to your needs for drink refills etc...

This restaurant has been around 15+ years. They do not advertise. The business is strictly via customers. When in the medical center area stop by. They have lunch/early bird/dinner specials. Try the chicken corn soup.

Saturday lunch. Egg drop soup was great! Tea was great. Ordered the beef and broccoli and the Combination, orange chicken and sweet sour chicken. Food was fresh but lacked flavor. Egg rolls and rice were a bit bland. Great service.

Have visited this restaurant many times. Food is consistently good, not gourmet but tasty. Very reasonably priced.

This is one of the family favorites. I've been eating here for about 9 years. Food is great, service is excellent and is a great place for families.

We went for lunch from work. They have many different lunch specials and one vegetarian option, which I took. It comes with soup. The meal was fine and under$10. Service was quick and no issues with orders.

My family and I really like this restaurant. We eat here as often as we can when we are in town. Staff is very friendly, the food is excellent. Nice and clean. I have been visiting this restaurant for over 10 years and I hope it stays for a long time.

Went for lunch. Restaurant atmosphere was very pleasing..no loud music, extremely clean, many tables not too closely placed next to each other, and appropriately decorated. Good selection of dishes and lunch specials. Prices are great. Service was friendly and very welcoming. This is out to go to place for Chinese food now!

We were introduced to this restaurant by our very good friends who have been going there for years. They hosted a birthday party there and everyone raved about the food. This past weekend, they catered a fundraiser at a local theater. Not only did they serve everything in a timely manner, but they actually cooked the food right outside the door in their wok do that everything was fresh and hot. What can I say? They're amazing!

Oh this place is (was) wonderful. I was visiting family in SA last month and we ate here on Friday night and I have to admit I wasn't expecting much. The paper menu looked boiler plate to me. I've seen this same menu in plenty of places in Florida. Boy was I pleasantly surprised. The meal was not only exceptionally tasty but it came out fairly quickly considering we had 14 people in our party. The service was on point and attentive. The restaurant itself was well lit and comfortable even for our gang. Finally we were introduced to the owner and he is one of the most welcoming affable fellows I've ever met. I told him that should I ever move to San Antonio I'd defiantly be eating at the Royal Inn two to three times a month or more!

My wife and I went there on the recommendation of a friend. All tastes are not created equal, however, I must say this was the worst chinese food I ever had in a restaurant. I ordered the General Tsoa chicken, which tasted like BBQ chicken. My wife ordered the lemon chicken which was breaded and came with a lemon sauce on the side that tasted more like lemon meringue than actual lemon sauce Chinese style. I was terrible.

My dad and I have been on an Asian restaurant quest for some time now on the northwest side of San Antonio. One place we tried early on and found it good, but had not been back was Royal Inn on Babcock Rd. Our second visit delighted us completely. My dad had the chicken fried rice (not on the menu, just ask for it). The plate was heaping to the point of almost falling off. He was unable to eat even half of the serving, but that made for almost two more meals at home. The amount of chicken was almost too much. You have your choice of white or dark meat. I opted for one of the day's specials, Singapore Fried Noodles. This dish was not a heaping as my dad's meal, but still much more than I was able to eat. Regardless of how much was served, this dish has got to be in the top 5 of all Asian dishes I have ever had. There was shrimp, chicken and ham throughout the pile of perfectly cooked and dressed noodles. I loved it then and two days later when I warmed it up in the microwave for a second lunch. Prices are fine at about $8/plate. We will not be waiting so long for our return for a 3rd meal.

Brother visiting from Massachusetts loved the food and service. He as eaten in many all over the USA and loved this experience.