| rev:text
| - Another place I went to wanting to love, and leaving with mixed feelings.
My first bit of advice- unless you want unpleasant surprises, only order off the menu. Or, ask the price in advance. Secondly, when I booked I was not aware that this restaurant is participating in the Restaurant.com program, therefore I had no idea that the owners are already ahead of the curve and most likely anticipating a certificate from first time patrons, particularly patrons who are not ethnically Chinese.
The restaurant was selected based on my experiences dining with a friend from Hong Kong, who was not with me last night. I found them on the website for the Chinese Cultural Center, as I have only lived here in AZ for two years. I didn't find out about the Restaurant.com certificate participation until after booking the reservation and then coming to Yelp to read reviews. I happened to have over two hundred dollars in Restaurant.com certificates so I redeemed one to use for dinner. A happy accident, right?
I've eaten in Chinatown in NYC many times, eaten in restaurants where there is no menu in English and my Cantonese speaking friend ordered, and have ordered a whole duck many times. Sometimes the side dishes or presentation vary a little, but there is no disputing the sum parts of an entire duck- it includes two wings and two legs. I know my duck.
So a duck, not on the menu but available, was ordered more than 24 hours in advance. Upon arrival for our reservation the duck was served shortly thereafter with polite and congenial service from a woman I assume is one half of the couple that owns the restaurant. The Shanghai style crepes were good, the scallion was julienned, the hoisin sauce was augmented. It was delicious, but in my opinion it was not a whole duck as ordered and charged for- upon service I asked the woman if it was a whole duck because the sliced breast parts did not seem to be the entire bird. Also, in Chinatown there is a practice of presenting the duck, carving at table, then whisking away to make a second course from the parts that don't easily lend themselves to rolling in crepes or in buns (some restaurants serve a puffy flat bun and not a crepe) but in our case there was no second course.
We ordered other dishes, especially since my dining companion is a neophyte to non-Americanized chinese. We weren't there trying to get away with only fulfilling the required 45 dollar purchase per the gift certificate- I try to make it worth the owner's while and be fair.
For him there was peppersteak and house special fried rice, for me the sea bass in white wine (I wanted fish with pine nuts but they were out of nuts) and chinese fried cabbage, a stir fried bok choy and napa mixture with dried baby shrimp as seasoning. The food was tasty, albeit too much salt was added, and I definitely tasted MSG in the fish and cabbage. Also, the beef and cabbage were swimming in a puddle of grease. The cabbage alone was eight bucks, but again since we were getting a discount I thought it only fair to order at least one dish where the owner had a high markup. Ditto for the rice.
When the bill came I was a little surprised to see that the Duck alone was forty bucks, since we didn't get the whole duck. I tendered my certificate without a word and the staff politely packed up our leftovers, which was most of our meal- that was deliberate. The bill with tax was 88 bucks and change, and the terms of the certificate included a mandatory 18 percent tip before discount. I don't have a problem with that at all, I always tip on the face value of a meal, not the discount price. What I don't like however is the habit of owners to assess the tax on the total of the bill prior to discount- I've used certificates at restaurants that used computerized systems and never been taxed on the full price. This restaurant uses hand written tickets that are written entirely in chinese except for the numbers. To add insult to injury, the owner assessed the mandatory tip on the entire amount including the tax. I know that waitstaff today assume that they are due a tip on the tax, but actually that's quite incorrect traditionally. When the bill came back it was just shy of eighty dollars after discount. I don't begrudge restaurant owners trying to keep afloat and make a living, but I don't like it when they pad the bill, and this bill was padded. That plus our less than a whole duck left a bad taste in my mouth about this restaurant, and that alone is grounds for me not to return.
If you want something better than american style chinese or want to use one of those certificates, then go ahead and dine at Lao Ching Hing, but this is my advice: Only order off the menu. Advise the server to ask the kitchen to go easy on the salt, and if you're not a fan of MSG, request that they keep it out of your food. Lastly, just order what you want for the meal and if you want extra, order it separately as take-out to avoid having a padded bill.
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