Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on April 19, 2024.
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General Shu's appears to have permanently closed in 2024.
We're quite familiar with breweries expanding and adding a restaurant menu onto their repertoire. Shubrew in Zelienople is one such brewery and is known for having one of the best food menus of any in the region.
But one thing we're not used to seeing is a brewery opening its own standalone restaurant across the street from their main space. But in 2020 Shubrew did just that with their leap into the Chinese food market- the aptly named General Shu's.
We have to say, this one has some solid dishes.
ShuBrew Expands Their Portfolio With General Shu's
I worked in Zelienople for many, many years and I have to admit that one of my biggest laments was the lack of accessibility of good (admittedly not terribly authentic) Chinese food. So when Shubrew announced their expansion with a Chinese-focused menu and their beer on draft, I was pretty excited about that.
When you read over their menu, it is a lot like most conventional Chinese restaurants. A lot of American favorites, like their take on General Tso's (the namesake), lo mein, egg rolls, and fried rice are present as are some more classically Chinese options like Kung Pao chicken and tofu.
As such, we ordered a mix of everything we typically do when getting Americanized Chinese food- general tso's chicken (or should we say, shu's), dan dan noodles, kung pao tofu, and of course a fried egg roll. Very quickly, the first things you'll notice when getting an order here are that the portions are huge (especially for the price), the ingredients are on the higher-quality end, and they do not shy away from some pretty intense flavor profiles.
The general shu's had that nice exterior batter with a tang and sweetness balance we like in the dish, without being unbalanced in one direction in the slightest (do yourself a favor and order an extra side of sauce for the inevitable leftover rice). The kung pao sauce had a sufficient heat kick without being over bearing. The addition of pork in the egg roll added a wonderful richness to each bite. And finally, the dan dan noodles were straight-up complex with a wonderful balance in the flavors of the pork, chili oil peanuts, and sesame oil.
In fact, the only complaint we really had about any of these was in how the dan dan noodles were packaged in our to-go container.
It seemed like the noodles were added into the box first, and all of the sauce was poured on top. As such, half the noodles were oversaturated with the delightful dan dan sauce and others were quite plain despite our best attempts at mixing (this likely would not have been an issue dining in and the thick sauce was a little hotter / easier to spread around).
Ignoring this minor critique, we really enjoyed this meal from General Shu's. They offered solid iterations of some of the modern dishes we're used to ordering at Chinese restaurants and the portions were so large that each entree in itself was enough food for two generous meals.
So if you over order here like we did, well, be prepared leftovers!
General Shu's was located at 210 S Main Street in Zelienople, PA and closed in 2024. This was the former home of Shubrew before they moved the main brewery across the street.
Still want another beer while in Zelienople? Check out other nearby breweries like North Country at the Harmony Inn or Union Brothers Brewing!