I don't often order Chinese food. Mostly this is because Paul doesn't like it, and we tend to share…read moremeals. This means that, should he be away for an evening, I'm often tempted to take the opportunity and get a takeaway, without feeling guilty that there's nothing on the menu that he'll like.
This happened last weekend. He was away for a stag do. I had had a fabulously productive day, working out, gardening and getting a selection of chores done. I deserved a takeaway, and I was damned if I was missing my chance.
However, this is the first such chance I've had since we've moved, so I had no idea where to order from. Let's face it, your favourite takeaway place is your favourite because you've ordered from it many times and have never been disappointed. You probably tried a few places before you found your favourite and now you live in fear that the chef will leave, or they'll close down, or something similarly horrific.
So while I've found good pizza, curry, and Thai places, this was my first step in my journey to find Falkirk's Best Chinese Takeaway. As always, that first step represents something of a risk. Nevertheless, I bravely loaded up Just-eat and found Canton Chinese. They had good reviews and they would deliver to my home, so that was good enough to make them the first place to try.
I selected deep fried wontons, crispy shredded beef with sauce (which came with a note that it was recommended by the chef and that it was spicy, hard to refuse) and a portion of fried rice. I was told it would take an hour to arrive. Astonishingly, someone rang my doorbell within 35 minutes. You know what, early food is awesome, but if you're going to be quick, say so. What if I'd been in the bath? As it happens, I wasn't in the bath and I was very pleased my food had arrived because I was hungry, but still. Just give a reasonable estimate.
Anyway, everything looked great. When I order take out for one, I don't tend to faff about having a starter and then moving on to the main, I unbox the lot and eat a bit of what I fancy as I go. This time, though, I immediately zoned in on the wontons. They were huge, and crisp, with tender, lightly spiced prawn meat centres. I engulfed them. I'm not proud, but I'd do it again.
Now if you think I'm the kind of woman who's going to be full after enough wontons to feed a family of four, you've either never met me or we've never shared a meal together. I moved onto the beef. It had been sitting there looking tempting, if suspiciously battered and orange. Then again, it was certainly in sauce, there was every possibility that the sauce was spicy and who knows, maybe that's just how they do it here. I'm open minded, I was hungry, I was going to eat the beef.
Sure, it looks good, but does it look like beef?
Sadly, that turned out to be impossible. My so-called crispy shredded beef turned out to actually be sweet and sour chicken. Heartbreaking. I quite like sweet and sour chicken but I never order it because it occasionally gives me migraines. Fortunately, this one didn't taste migraine-y (if you have food triggers for your migraines, you probably know exactly what I mean) so, after a brief moment of trying to decide whether I could be bothered with calling the restaurant, I gave up and ate it.
And you know what, it wasn't bad. I quite enjoyed it. It's just that it wasn't what I'd ordered. As much as I liked the chicken, I can't help wondering what happened to my actual meal. Was there someone else somewhere in Falkirk absolutely gutted that their chicken never showed up? More importantly, was their meal better than mine? Sadly, I fear I am destined to never find out.
The mistake isn't enough to put me off from ordering from Canton Chinese in the future, but it was kind of annoying. Sure, I suspect that if I'd called they would have brought out the right meal, but that seemed like a lot of effort. It's good to know that if I'm ever craving sweet and sour this is a safe place to get it from, so there's that. If this were the only Chinese takeaway in Falkirk I'd write it off as bad luck and order again next time, but it isn't, so I probably won't.
