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lunch review
Nov. 13th, 2008 01:39 pmEric's been raving about this Chinese place for awhile, and I was starving and convinced him to take me there. It's this place located in a big Asian grocery and is called Asian Cafe. It looked a bit divey, but that's nothing against it. The menu had a whole bunch of typical Chinese dishes, and some different ones. We ordered the green bean dish and shredded chicken with either beach or beech mushrooms. It's a pretty no-frills meal, you can go to a station and get hot tea or cold water, and pick up some little bowls, those largish short-handled plastic soup spoons, and chopsticks, and find a table.
Yeah, no flatwear. I have a low enough dex score that this made me panic slightly, but I managed to make it through most of the meal using the chopsticks before I gave up and used the big spoon. Eric only laughed at me a little. Anyway!
The green beans don't sound like much, but Eric and I both have always really liked the stir-fried green beans available on a lot of Chinese buffets. These were they- just a giant pile of bright green veggies with a little bit of onion. All they needed was a tiny bit of soy and they were perfect- crunchy and tasty. I do suspect they might not have been vegetarian, if that matters; there was a smattering of little brown specks among the onion that tasted suspiciously like bacon or tiny pork bits of some sort.
The chicken and mushrooms didn't look all that appetizing; it was all plain white and looked like it would taste really bland, but that was not the case. There were thin slices of garlic cloves and ginger and the sauce was a lot more highly flavored than I expected. Also there was a ton of it, served with a nice bowl of sticky rice which helped my chopstick-challenged food delivery.
The dishes were a bit more pricey than I expected, but not too bad. I'll give it a thumbs-up. I don't know enough about authentic Chinese to make an accurate account of that, but the staff did not speak English as a first language and there were a lot of Chinese folks having lunch there- generally a good sign.
For dessert I browsed the well-stocked Pocky section but Eric mentioned a place next door that had cake called Ann's Kitchen. Sure enough, they had cake, and they also had cupcakes each in about a half-dozen or so flavors. We went the simple route and chose chocolate and wandered over to sit in my car and eat them. Really though I should've taken it home and put down a tablecloth and eaten it with a fine chalice of whole milk (which I never drink) because that cupcake was the goddamn bomb. First, it was cold, so the texture held together a lot better. The frosting was dense, high-quality stuff, not that whipped crunchy crap you get at the grocery. And it had a center of chocolate goo (the fancy-ass term Eric used was ganache) which was so dark it was almost black. Register lady said it was the cupcake version of their (reportedly) famous triple chocolate cake. It was the chocolate cupcake I would request if it was the only chocolate cupcake I could ever eat, and I ate chocolate cupcakes in the cupcake district in Seattle. So four or five thumbs-up for Ann's Kitchen.
Yeah, no flatwear. I have a low enough dex score that this made me panic slightly, but I managed to make it through most of the meal using the chopsticks before I gave up and used the big spoon. Eric only laughed at me a little. Anyway!
The green beans don't sound like much, but Eric and I both have always really liked the stir-fried green beans available on a lot of Chinese buffets. These were they- just a giant pile of bright green veggies with a little bit of onion. All they needed was a tiny bit of soy and they were perfect- crunchy and tasty. I do suspect they might not have been vegetarian, if that matters; there was a smattering of little brown specks among the onion that tasted suspiciously like bacon or tiny pork bits of some sort.
The chicken and mushrooms didn't look all that appetizing; it was all plain white and looked like it would taste really bland, but that was not the case. There were thin slices of garlic cloves and ginger and the sauce was a lot more highly flavored than I expected. Also there was a ton of it, served with a nice bowl of sticky rice which helped my chopstick-challenged food delivery.
The dishes were a bit more pricey than I expected, but not too bad. I'll give it a thumbs-up. I don't know enough about authentic Chinese to make an accurate account of that, but the staff did not speak English as a first language and there were a lot of Chinese folks having lunch there- generally a good sign.
For dessert I browsed the well-stocked Pocky section but Eric mentioned a place next door that had cake called Ann's Kitchen. Sure enough, they had cake, and they also had cupcakes each in about a half-dozen or so flavors. We went the simple route and chose chocolate and wandered over to sit in my car and eat them. Really though I should've taken it home and put down a tablecloth and eaten it with a fine chalice of whole milk (which I never drink) because that cupcake was the goddamn bomb. First, it was cold, so the texture held together a lot better. The frosting was dense, high-quality stuff, not that whipped crunchy crap you get at the grocery. And it had a center of chocolate goo (the fancy-ass term Eric used was ganache) which was so dark it was almost black. Register lady said it was the cupcake version of their (reportedly) famous triple chocolate cake. It was the chocolate cupcake I would request if it was the only chocolate cupcake I could ever eat, and I ate chocolate cupcakes in the cupcake district in Seattle. So four or five thumbs-up for Ann's Kitchen.
