Yue Huang

3860 Truxel Rd

Sacramento, CA 95834

Rating:  

Located at the former site of Johnny Carino’s in Natomas, Yue Huang brings higher class Chinese cuisine to Natomas. As you enter the restaurant, a large glass display case appears to your right filled with various bottles of wines and pieces of porcelain. We opted to visit the restaurant for dinner as it would be quite unlikely to drive up to Natomas for dim sum. A hostess quickly seated us at a table, provided us with menus, and took our drink order. While reviewing the menu, another server came by to take our drink order, but we let her know that we already placed the order. The menu is of high quality and comes with many color pictures. Our complimentary tea and ice water arrived and the server took our order.

Today, we decided to order the honey walnut prawns, Yangzhou fried rice, chicken chow mein, rainbow chicken, and empress chicken. The honey walnut prawns arrived first and tasted quite savory, but not that sweet. The walnuts also lacked the sweetness normally present in this dish. The pawns themselves were quite large and tasted fresh. The chicken chow mein came with ample amounts of chicken, but was quite oily and lacked much flavor. The Yangzhou fried rice came with nice fresh shrimp, but the BBQ pork was quite stale. The rainbow chicken looked really good and tasted quite spicy, but the dish was extremely savory and salty. The empress chicken tasted OK, but the skin was extremely salty and the rest of the chicken tasted quite bland.

Overall, Yue Huang comes across as a high-class restaurant, but the food quality really falls short for the prices charged. The best deal of the meal was the grand opening special for $10 for a whole empress chicken. The rest of the meal did not seem like a good value. Service was hit or miss because staff did check on us, but a server forgot about us after they packed up the leftovers. If you are looking for a nice Chinese restaurant to dine in Natomas, then Yue Huang may fit the bill, but the quality of food makes this an unfavorable option. If I happened to be in Natomas in the morning, I may come try their dim sum, but I would not come back for dinner.