What do you order when you eat Chinese food?

The Lounge Chinese resteraunt is open for business, what's your order?

That and Kung Pao Chicken.

pork fried rice. And teriyaki sticks. And egg rolls. And hot and sour soup. And...

Oh, man! Thanks for the Chinese food cravings. :(

I'm thinking about trying it.

what does it taste like?

The octopi are bite-sized and cooked just perfect-tender without overcooking. Place I go to here in Austin serves it. My theory on ethnic restaurants is how many ethnics eat there. This place at any given time is 2/3 or better of the diners are Asiatics.

then they changed chefs and the place went down hill

I would love to try it...

and I usually get shrimp or house special, a little of everything.

We have a great Chinese restaurant about 5 minutes from home.

mark

Some of the best food I have eaten, have come places that look like dives.

:hi:

is a buffet style all you can eat for $7 place. My bother's family comes down from Boston and they hardly waste time talking with us before we are all off to the Jumbo. They have Chinese, some Japanese and some American food, slice your own huge beef roasts, tables of shrimp and raw oysters, and several tables of desserts of various kinds as well as fruit.
We found they also will make up Chinsee meals for you to order to take out, and we do this pretty often.
It is probably the fanciest restaurant we frequent - I agree with you about the dives. Our current favorite is a very small take-out only Peurto Rican restaurant called El Bohio.

mark

(Lunch time!)

YUM.

it instantly shot up the charts to the top 3

They don't serve it with cooked celerey. I have no idea why. I love Chinese cooked vegetables so it's disappointing when it's just chicken, peanuts, water chestnuts and sauce. Good, but disappointing.

is my all-time favorite. Now I just may have to hit the Chinese place for lunch. ;)

2nd choice: Szechuan anything

Hot & Sour soup for my appetizer

:9

And beef and broccoli.

:yoiks:

:hide:

:spank:

I generally go for some kind of fried rice-chow mein-egg roll combo. I like "Blue Sky Chinese" restaurant in Campbell, which takes a lot of flak for serving "Americanized" Chinese food, but AS AN American, that's A-OK with me.

They have a good black mushroom chicken. Nice chicken-to-veggie ratio. Add fried rice, soup, and an egg roll, and that's an $8 lunch. Big portions, too.

:toast:

I have discovered 2 of my top three favorite dishes in the past year.

Unfortunately none of the places around me make them... :(

i know a lot of folks poo-poo panda express, but they have good spicy orange chicken. their bejing beef is yummy too.

with some potstickers as an appetizer.

The key is the variety--always go with a big group and everybody has to share. Mushu pork, lo mein noodles, spring rolls... basically anything that's not breaded & fried and nothing with sweet and sour sauce on it.

:9

That's what I always order save for the occasional dalliance with moo-shu.

and a coke.

:9

in finding that restaurant. We are not really that sophisticated when it comes to taste. But we got it right and the Mu Shu pork is heaven.

I'll vary the entrees, but always get pot stickers.

Most of the Asian restaurants around here are Thai. At the one I frequent most often, I order the ginger fish.

When I can afford it, I go to the Japanese place and order sushi, gyoza and edamame.

or gross thickened food service shite. If they are real I get whatever sounds good. I also like to get house fried rice only I ask them to make it fresh with extra scallions and NO PEAS AND CARROTS.

some egg rolls and then some "entres" - at least one for every person at the table so we can sample and with an effort to include earth, sky, and water.

And that's my litmus test for a Chinese restaurant. Does the fried rice have little shreds of scrambled egg? Does it have scallions? Does it have real cha siu (BBQ pork)? Is the rice really fried, or steamed?

I've frequented two places with really perfect fried rice. One way out on Wisconsin Ave. in D.C., and the other the first Chinese takeout and delivery in Portland. The latter has changed hands several times over the years and no longer makes good Cantonese food.

I usually get pot stickers, hot & sour soup and mongolian beef.

Hi,
Local little place makes a very nice one of these. Yum!

Peace

that, and chicken & broccoli in white sauce.

If that's good (thick, just a touch of sourness, enough spice to really notice but not enough to make your eyes water), then I get adventurous and experiment with the menu.

If it's bad (thin, overly vinegary, not spicy), then I stick to stereotypical dishes that are hard to mess up. Another bad sign is if they automatically give you fried rice with canned peas and carrots in it.

Then there's the peculiar Twin Cities variation on Chinese appetizers known as the fried cream cheese wonton served with duck sauce. It is available at every East Asian restaurant I have visited since moving back here. Since dairy products are not on the menu in China, the origin of this appetizer is shrouded in mystery. Maybe some other Minnesotan knows where it came from.

But I like potstickers, sesame chicken, sand beef, Buddha's Delight, and anything else with lots of vegetables in it. Oh, and white rice only, please, with tea or Chinese beer to drink.

if the hot and sour soup isn't good, i'm not likely to ever go back.

thick is just corn starch - flavor comes from real broth, not cornstarch

but when there's no cornstarch, it's also likely to taste bad for some reason.

:puke:

good egg drop soup is magical in its simplicity - broth and egg - the complexity is in how the broth is made: whole chicken, pepper, ginger and scallions with just a splash of sherry - simmered for several hours and then strained. :9

Chow Mein :P

Pepper Steak with Black Bean Sauce :P :P

orange chicken and orange beef. pei wei has great mongolian beef or chicken with an orangey flavor. there's a local buffet that has a dish called marlay chicken that i love. it's basically spicy orange chicken with garlic and scallions instead of oranginess. i've never seen it anywhere else. i always have to have fried rice and lo mein wherever i go though. the fried rice and lo mein at pei wei come with meat or tofu and they are so flavorful that they can be a whole meal unto themselves. at a regular chinese resturant i usually go for the orangey stuff and if they don't have that i go for beef and brocoli, general tso's chicken or something with shrimp.

or

Scallop Lo Mein.


I can't wait to find out if the new take out place by our house is like the place we ordered from before we moved. They made their scallops so well they melted in your mouth. :9

or beef and broccoli. Damn it, now I am hungry for chinese!

Love my veggies

eggroll
sweet and sour chicken
chicken w/broccoli (I ask them to spice this one up, which they do nicely.)
fried rice, not steamed
hot tea

I know EXACTLY where I'm going for dinner.

I do like crab rangoon, though.

Here are some of my faves:
Cashew Shrimp
General Tso Chicken or Shrimp
Mongolian Beef
Lo Mein (veggie or chicken)
Kung Pao Chicken
Spicy Tofu

with bits of pork. I ask them to add bean sprouts, pea pods and straw mushrooms, and make it extra hot.

The owner knows what we want when we walk in the door. My daughter created this dish as a special order one night and now it is our traditional thing.


At China Jade, my current favorite is twice cooked pork, extra hot. They do it very nicely.

:hide:

Though Mary Ann beef is actually hotter.

Beef with mixed vegetables
Lo Mein

紅燒牛肉面 - Beef noodle soup
三杯雞 - 3 cup chicken
蠔油芥蘭 - Chinese kale w/ oyster sauce
麻婆豆腐 - Ma Po Tofu
四川火鍋 - SiChuan hotpot

And a pot of hot Oolong tea.

and egg roll with extra sweet and sour sauce on the side. None of that duck sauce crap for me.

or alone for lunch. Chicken egg rolls are my favorite, but some places just have pork and shrimp egg rolls.

will give them a try next time I see them on the menu...

Good stuff!

or Walnut Prawns :9

no chow mein, no green onion, sweet and sour sauce on the side.

pork almond ding.

It's moved ahead of house special chow mie fun, but still doesn't come close to a good wor shu duck or crispy fish.

Pork, chicken, mystery meat. :P