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| - I stopped by Little Szechuan today for lunch with a coworker. I told him the food was okay, nothing spectacular or memorable. The food is so-so and we needed to kill half an hour. So we decided to eat here rather than Chili's down the street since he had never been here before.
I've been here about a dozen times over about 5 years. It isn't the first place I think of when I want Asian food, but it is close to ASU and the price is right for lunch.
Did I mention that the food was not memorable? Today I had a dish I won't soon forget for its insipidness and service that was downright abysmal.
Usually I stick with something straightforward here like Beef and Broccoli or Chicken and Vegetables. I thought I would try something different after hearing the person next to us order Garlic Chicken. I frequently order Garlic Chicken from Mr. Hunan down the street. But for some reason, I didn't think to go there today. I usually order it as a take away from Mr. Hunan.
My partner ordered Teriyaki Chicken, of all things. When our dishes arrived, the chicken was generous on both dishes, but it was prepared in the same manner for both dishes. It was thickly breaded and deep fried chunks. His chicken was piled high but was bone dry. There was a ramekin of teriyaki sauce next to the chicken. The ramekin was half filled with teriyaki sauce--not enough to fully cover the chicken if poured over the chicken and not enough sauce to dip every piece of chicken. There were no vegetables, pineapple or anything else I tend to associate with Teriyaki Chicken. The plate had chunks of fried chicken, teriyaki sauce on the side and a pile of fried rice.
My pile of Garlic Chicken was the same breaded and fried chicken. Most of the chicken was coated with the garlic sauce and onions that was part of the dish. Some of the chicken was again bone dry. It was obvious that the chicken had been cooked separately from the onions and sauce. The sauce and onions were poured over the chicken rather than mixing the chicken, onions and sauce together in a wok.
And when I say onions and sauce, it is no exaggeration. The garlic sauce consisted of sliced white onions and 2-inch lengths of green onion. I took one bite of the chicken and it was crunchy and salty. It was the only bite I took of the dish. I lifted some of the chicken and onions to see how much sauce there was and the plate was visible beneath the chicken. There wasn't enough sauce to even give a thin coat on the plate. I pushed the plate away and sat there drinking hot tea while my partner finished his dish.
The waiter walked by our table at least 4 times and saw that I had pushed the dish to the edge of the table to be cleared away, but he didn't stop to ask if anything was wrong. In fact, he took a detour on one of the visits to the table behind us--it looked like he was trying to steer clear of our table. I purposely didn't flag him down. I wanted to see if he would stop by and check with our table, but he never did.
When my partner finished, we sat for a while at the table, but eventually we had to walk up to the counter to get our bill--not the usual practice here. They bring the bill along with a fortune cookie. We stood at the counter for a while and the waiter finally showed up to ring us up. He told me the total, but I told him I was not paying for my dish since I thought it was horrid. He took the charge off the bill without question. I did not leave a tip and we left.
I will go back to this place. Probably for my usual once a year visit. And I will order my usual nondescript meal. If you want Chinese food near ASU, you are pretty limited on choices.
Again, we should have gone to Mr. Hunan, but I never think of Mr. Hunan as a place to sit and eat. Their Garlic Chicken is really tasty. It has thin slices of tender chicken with a good mix of vegetables including onions, mushrooms, water chestnuts, broccoli, and carrots. Their sauce is delicious. There is plenty of the brown sauce to drizzle over the rice and I find the rice and sauce combination to be as good a treat as eating the chicken and vegetables.
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