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| - Was a little leery about trying Desert Jade for dinner last night. The building on the outside looks old and the half lit sign was not inspiring confidence, but I have been craving Chinese and my hubby and I always go past it it and stare curiously.
Lets be clear here, this is NOT an authentic, or anywhere close Chinese restaurant. This is a good old fashioned American Chinese joint, keeping that in mind we tried the Sweet and Sour Pork, Singapore Rice Noodles and Sauteed Shrimp.
The food came out FAST, I mean in 10 minutes after ordering we had our first dish on the table. It was hot and fresh, no rewarmed in the microwave junk. The pork was lovely, big chunks of tender battered pork in that great artificial red sauce which was tangy with just the right amount of sweet. The pork was accompanied by nice sized chunks of pineapple and green peppers that still had some crunch, not cooked to oblivion.
The Singapore Rice Noodles came in a huge portion, probably enough to feed 4 people. Perfectly done thin rice noodles with lots of shrimp and pork tossed together with a wonderful curry sauce. Not at all greasy or over sauced. We took more than half of the dish home for delicious leftovers.
The shrimp dish consisted of a good sized plate of very lightly battered shrimp sauteed with chili peppers and large cut green onions. It looks deceivingly simple but has wonderful flavor much light salt and pepper shrimp but with much less mess as they don't need to be peeled. The server asked us how hot we wanted the dish so we went with a 5/10, we ended up with a nice blend of flavor and heat that was a gentle medium for us.
The service was fast and friendly, the restaurant itself is very clean, it looks like it recently got a new coat of paint. Overall for the price the food is quite a good deal.
Oh yes in response to another Yelpers review in where he noted all the elderly in the restaurant and wondered if there was a retirement home in the area. Yes there are like 3 of them in very close proximity!
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