Steve
10-21-2005, 03:49 AM
Dragon Noodle Co. relies mostly on Americanized versions of Chinese dishes.
By Heidi Knapp Rinella.
There are all kinds of Chinese restaurants -- maybe not as many kinds as there are people in China, but close.
There are Chinese restaurants built on the foods of a particular region, Chinese restaurants built on the foods of a particular city, Chinese restaurants built on rural foods, Chinese restaurants built solely on the style of the person who's doing the cooking.
In this country, most Chinese restaurants are Chinese-American. That's understandable for a couple of reasons, the first being that this is, after all, America. The other is that American sensibilities tend to be put off by things such as pig uterus. That's OK, because Americans are eating a lot of things these days that they didn't a decade or two ago; maybe pig uterus is in our future as well. In the meantime, we get by with some dishes that you actually might find in a restaurant in China, and many that were created purely for American tastes.
When I first looked over the menu at Dragon Noodle Co. at the Monte Carlo, the thought that it was in the Chinese-American group immediately crossed my mind. Dragon Noodle actually calls itself an "Asian" restaurant, and indeed it does serve some things that are from other Asian cultures, sushi being the most obvious. But most of the dishes on this menu are Cantonese or Szechuan, two cuisines familiar to and beloved by Americans. So for better or worse (depending on your viewpoint), this is, by and large, very accessible Chinese food. And actually, it's what we'd expect at a resort such as the Monte Carlo, which doesn't have the concentrated draw of Asian nationals of a place such as Caesars Palace. This is Moo Goo Gai Pan and Lemon Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork and, bless their hearts, Egg Foo Young.
I was almost tempted to order the Egg Foo Young, just to take a stab at a '50s flashback. But saner heads prevailed. Chow Fun -- now that sounded pretty good, the main reason being that Chow Fun is not easy to come by at local restaurants. It's rice noodles -- by definition wide rice noodles, although a lot of people cut them into narrower strips -- and in the wider style, the way they're served at Dragon Noodle Co., it's easy to believe that Marco Polo really did bring pasta back from China.
Chow Fun is available in numerous varieties at Dragon Noodle Co.; we decided on the seafood ($19.95). The menu promised a "natural white sauce" and we were expecting something nice and light, but the sauce turned out to be thick, almost mucilaginous. It didn't do justice to the slippery, slightly chewy noodles, to the fresh, crisp vegetables and to the profusion of seafood, which included chunks of fish and lobster and whole shrimps and scallops. Some of these seafoods cook at different rates, so the fact that none were under- or overcooked was worthy of note.
We also had a Chinatown classic, honey chicken ($11.95). This is the sort of dish commonly found on Chinese-American menus, not least because the same battered-and-fried chicken chunks at its base can take on so many permutations -- as lemon chicken, sweet-and-sour chicken, etc. -- but also because of the American fondness for frying. This interpretation was better than most honey chickens -- the meat moist, the coating crisp and not greasy, the glaze as subtle as an angel's kiss.
Egg flower soup ($4.50), another Chinatown classic that's called egg drop in some parts of the country, was really superlative. It's easy for the egg to get overly blended with the broth, making the soup sort of slimy, but in this soup the egg shreds maintained their integrity, and the usual component of corn was wonderfully crunchy, for a rare textural contrast. Peas and bits of carrot rounded things out.
From the "small plates and dim sum" part of the menu, we chose the pot stickers ($7.25). And we added some shrimp sushi ($5.50) for good measure.
The pot stickers were just OK; the filling of pork, pork and not much besides pork could've benefitted from some bok choy or napa cabbage or some fresh ginger, and while the skins were nice and crunchy, they tasted of stale oil. The sushi (which we tend to think of sushi for wimps, in that the shrimp were cooked) was really very good, the sweet, fresh shrimp artfully butterflied and settled so perfectly on their mounds of vinegared rice.
And we had a lovely finish with an order of fried bananas ($6.50), the coating tempura-light and crisp, with which we drank a flavorful pot of Monkey-Picked Tea ($6.50), one of a large selection of teas listed.
As we lingered over dessert, we looked around the restaurant, and my gaze settled on a couple next to us, enjoying their Beef Chow Mein and Cokes. They certainly seemed happy, their only audible complaints having to do with the large portions and how they'd handle the leftovers.
Yes, there are lots of types of Chinese restaurants. The successful ones know their market.
reviewjournal.com -- Neon: RESTAURANT REVIEW: East in the West
By Heidi Knapp Rinella.
There are all kinds of Chinese restaurants -- maybe not as many kinds as there are people in China, but close.
There are Chinese restaurants built on the foods of a particular region, Chinese restaurants built on the foods of a particular city, Chinese restaurants built on rural foods, Chinese restaurants built solely on the style of the person who's doing the cooking.
In this country, most Chinese restaurants are Chinese-American. That's understandable for a couple of reasons, the first being that this is, after all, America. The other is that American sensibilities tend to be put off by things such as pig uterus. That's OK, because Americans are eating a lot of things these days that they didn't a decade or two ago; maybe pig uterus is in our future as well. In the meantime, we get by with some dishes that you actually might find in a restaurant in China, and many that were created purely for American tastes.
When I first looked over the menu at Dragon Noodle Co. at the Monte Carlo, the thought that it was in the Chinese-American group immediately crossed my mind. Dragon Noodle actually calls itself an "Asian" restaurant, and indeed it does serve some things that are from other Asian cultures, sushi being the most obvious. But most of the dishes on this menu are Cantonese or Szechuan, two cuisines familiar to and beloved by Americans. So for better or worse (depending on your viewpoint), this is, by and large, very accessible Chinese food. And actually, it's what we'd expect at a resort such as the Monte Carlo, which doesn't have the concentrated draw of Asian nationals of a place such as Caesars Palace. This is Moo Goo Gai Pan and Lemon Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork and, bless their hearts, Egg Foo Young.
I was almost tempted to order the Egg Foo Young, just to take a stab at a '50s flashback. But saner heads prevailed. Chow Fun -- now that sounded pretty good, the main reason being that Chow Fun is not easy to come by at local restaurants. It's rice noodles -- by definition wide rice noodles, although a lot of people cut them into narrower strips -- and in the wider style, the way they're served at Dragon Noodle Co., it's easy to believe that Marco Polo really did bring pasta back from China.
Chow Fun is available in numerous varieties at Dragon Noodle Co.; we decided on the seafood ($19.95). The menu promised a "natural white sauce" and we were expecting something nice and light, but the sauce turned out to be thick, almost mucilaginous. It didn't do justice to the slippery, slightly chewy noodles, to the fresh, crisp vegetables and to the profusion of seafood, which included chunks of fish and lobster and whole shrimps and scallops. Some of these seafoods cook at different rates, so the fact that none were under- or overcooked was worthy of note.
We also had a Chinatown classic, honey chicken ($11.95). This is the sort of dish commonly found on Chinese-American menus, not least because the same battered-and-fried chicken chunks at its base can take on so many permutations -- as lemon chicken, sweet-and-sour chicken, etc. -- but also because of the American fondness for frying. This interpretation was better than most honey chickens -- the meat moist, the coating crisp and not greasy, the glaze as subtle as an angel's kiss.
Egg flower soup ($4.50), another Chinatown classic that's called egg drop in some parts of the country, was really superlative. It's easy for the egg to get overly blended with the broth, making the soup sort of slimy, but in this soup the egg shreds maintained their integrity, and the usual component of corn was wonderfully crunchy, for a rare textural contrast. Peas and bits of carrot rounded things out.
From the "small plates and dim sum" part of the menu, we chose the pot stickers ($7.25). And we added some shrimp sushi ($5.50) for good measure.
The pot stickers were just OK; the filling of pork, pork and not much besides pork could've benefitted from some bok choy or napa cabbage or some fresh ginger, and while the skins were nice and crunchy, they tasted of stale oil. The sushi (which we tend to think of sushi for wimps, in that the shrimp were cooked) was really very good, the sweet, fresh shrimp artfully butterflied and settled so perfectly on their mounds of vinegared rice.
And we had a lovely finish with an order of fried bananas ($6.50), the coating tempura-light and crisp, with which we drank a flavorful pot of Monkey-Picked Tea ($6.50), one of a large selection of teas listed.
As we lingered over dessert, we looked around the restaurant, and my gaze settled on a couple next to us, enjoying their Beef Chow Mein and Cokes. They certainly seemed happy, their only audible complaints having to do with the large portions and how they'd handle the leftovers.
Yes, there are lots of types of Chinese restaurants. The successful ones know their market.
reviewjournal.com -- Neon: RESTAURANT REVIEW: East in the West