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| - For me the Golden Dragon was one of those places you drive by all the time for years, always thinking "Man, I really need to try this place. There's always cars in the lot and they've been around forever!" but inexplicably never do anything more than that. Well, after approximately 19 years I finally gave the Golden Dragon a try and it was...a valley Chinese restaurant.
I've been on a mini-quest to find a suitable replacement for my former go-to neighborhood Chinese joint (the lamentable Pong Pong on West Bell Road) and so far, so-so. Therefore I was really hoping that my quest would end with this long pondered destination. I mean, hey, they have sizzling rice soup! That immediately scores a point of favor, right? So here's the rundown
The wife and I ordered takeout:
-Szechuan beef
-Orange chicken
-Egg drop soup
-Spring rolls
-Crab puffs
-Vegetable fried rice
The beef itself was good, tender and not over done. The sauce was typical brown spicy-ish gravy. Not overtly oily but commonly greasy. The chicken was of very good quality, the "spicy" orange sauce was prevalent but the taste was AWOL.
On a side note, why is that Chinese restaurants always denote the spicy dishes on the menu? In my experience, this merely means that a dried red pepper will be placed somewhere within the dish, rendering a few surrounding millimeters somewhat hotter than the rest.
Any-hoo - The egg drop soup was all egg flour. That's it, not even a sliver of scallion. Not bad, but barren. The crab puffs were pretty good. Large, with a better than average filling that contained a fair portion of Krab™. The spring rolls were pretty terrible. Oilier than canned sardines and filled with a bland mixture of rice noodles and something that resembled the stuff that oozes out of the cyborgs in the Alien film series. The highlight was the veggie fried rice. Fluffy, savory, with generous amounts of fried egg and bean sprouts.
All and all...a valley Chinese restaurant. I think I might have to abandon my quest to replace my old favorite Chinese joint. Maybe it's not so much that I can't find something suitable, maybe it's more that I just don't really like Chinese/American food anymore.
(Except for sizzling rice soup. Why didn't I get the sizzling rice soup? I haven't had the stuff in eons)
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