We've all heard and possibly even made the "10 Minute" Chinese Food joke. I mean, why not? It writes itself and it's almost always kind of sort of funny. What's NOT funny is that to be honest, I don't WANT my food ready in 10 minutes. The only thing that should come out in 10 minutes is a salad and maybe an appetizer. If my take-out order is ready in 10 minutes, that says a lot of things that I don't want to be said about my dinner.
We decided to try this place for the first time the other night on a few recommendations from friends and family. At this point, we've tried literally every single other Chinese Food option in a 10-mile radius so why not! As with most first contact situations, this was going to be a kind of light, take-out test run. It was just my daughter and me, so there was going to be a huge discovery opportunity here, but we decided to hit a couple of obvious options: Unique appetizer, "standard" Chinese food dish, Sushi roll, and a unique specialty dish.
Put the call in around 5:30 on a Tuesday night and got our order in. The gent that answered the phone was super polite and read everything back to make sure we got exactly what we ordered. Love that! Once we were square, he said "Thank you, your order with be ready in.....................................................................THIRTY MINUTES!!!" He didn't actually pause and yell like that, I added that for emphasis. The point is, the 30-minute wait was a plus for me.
Arrived right at the 30-minute mark and the food was just coming out of the kitchen, perfect. Price was right on point and we were in and out.
On to the food....
Appetizer: Apparently there is a thing called "Szechuan Dumplings" that I've never heard of and someone forgot to tell me about. All I'll say is this, get them. Completely unique twist on a common app. 10/10 on those.
Standard Dish: My daughter is a LoMein FIEND and I've watched her consume more of it than I can remember. Her take on the Port LoMein here? "Really good". I also tried it and I will say that it wasn't as salty as others I've had and the noodles were firmer than most, both of which I loved. 7/10
Sushi Roll: We got the Samurai specialty roll and I'll say this, it was better than I expected. It wasn't good enough to make me go here SPECIFICALLY for Sushi, but it was good enough that I'd order one if I was here anyway. Not life-changing, but high quality and really tasty. 6/10
Specialty Dish: Although I was kind of leaning towards something straight spicy, the "Black Pepper Chicken" specialty dish caught my eye right away. It was nothing I'd ever ordered before and honestly don't ever remember seeing it on a menu before. It was good, REALLY good. Very peppery (obviously), but not enough to outweigh the other flavors. The typical mix of Chinese vegetables and a nice garlic-ey sauce. Big fan and will definitely get this again. 7/10
Again, we did the take out thing, but the dining room seemed nice and clean and pretty cozy. The servers were back and forth all over the place so I'm assuming that is covered as well. Our next contact will be for dine-in, but at this point, I would say that this is the BEST Chinese option within a 10-mile radius. We're fans! read more