The Lakewood Connect as well as Eunhae H's review were enough to draw me into trying Orange Grill…read moreTeriyaki & Rolls. I hadn't heard of Orange Grill and didn't even know they had a location in Cypress until I read Eunhae's review, which also mentioned Orange Grill was offering 20% off for their Grand Opening throughout the month of September.
Orange Grill opened recently in Color Corner on the southeast corner of Del Amo and Paramount. If you recall where Charo Chicken used to be, that's where Orange Grill currently is. The turnaround was pretty quick that soon after I noticed the Charo Chicken signage being removed, I saw a 20% off Grand Opening banner, momentarily making me think that Charo Chicken had been resuscitated until I saw the bright orange Orange Grill signage plastered over the remnants of Charo Chicken lettering.
For lunch on a Friday, I would have gone to Panda Express if the Dodgers had won their home game the previous day, but instead, I remembered that I had been meaning to go here while the 20% off was still in effect.
I went inside and saw a handful of customers waiting for their orders, plus one placing his order at the register. While the menu was overhead, I noticed some menu brochures on the front counter and grabbed one to help me decide what to get. I had briefly seen their menu on the Cypress location's website, so I did have an idea of what they offered, but didn't really make a firm decision until I got there.
Bowls are served with rice, green onions, and sauce. Plates and combos are served with all of the above, plus salad. However, it was still hard for me to discern the differences among the three. When I asked the cashier (Gina?), she mentioned that the plates would have salads whereas the bowls would have steamed vegetables. However, the combos also come with either tempura or sushi rolls.
I was craving salmon at the time, so I wanted to get something with salmon. Unfortunately, they didn't have a combo with salmon, so that left me with a Salmon Veggie Bowl and a Salmon Plate, the latter of which was $2 more. I didn't think salad was worth $2 more than steamed vegetables, so I went with the Salmon Veggie Bowl, which came to just less than $13 after the 20% discount and tax.
I asked Gina how long the wait would be, and she estimated about 10 minutes. The tables for four in front of the front counter were occupied by customers waiting for their orders, so I sat at a table for two off to the side, well outside Gina's peripheral vision.
Each table has bottles of sriracha and soy sauce, so I thought I would have had to dine in to get access to these sauces. However, after about 6 to 7 minutes, when I had moved to a table for four, Gina got my attention to let me know my order was ready and bagged up. Inside the bag was a small cup of sriracha sauce as well as a larger cup of teriyaki sauce. Thinking they'd be good enough, I took my order to go.
I was pleasantly surprised that they were done with my Salmon Veggie Bowl earlier than expected, but it did make me question the quality of the food in my order.
The Salmon Veggie bowl, as alluded to earlier, contains the salmon, steamed vegetables, and rice. I was a little disappointed that it was white rice because I would have much preferred brown rice instead. Unfortunately, I think the default is white rice, which may deter me from ordering more bowls in the future despite the somewhat large size of the takeout box. The bowl also contained green onions and a slice of lemon, which was so flimsy that it was hard for me to squeeze any lemon juice out.
Everything was cooked well, but even when I added all the sriracha and teriyaki sauces to the bowl, the flavor was still kind of lacking. I even had to add some salted peanuts to the bowl to make my taste buds fully satisfied, but I almost certainly would have enjoyed it better had I dined inside so I could add some soy sauce or even more sriracha sauce to my bowl.
Did I mention how large the bowl was? While I did get a good serving size of the salmon, it felt like at least 60% of the bowl was white rice, so I was eating more white rice and less vegetables than I was hoping. The salmon was good too, but a knife would have been helpful in cutting the salmon filet into pieces; I was only given a fork in my takeout bag.
It's also worth mentioning I wasn't asked if I wanted to dine in or order to go, so I assume they pack all orders to go to save a little time at ringing up each customer.
Overall, it was a good visit to Orange Grill, but I can't give 5 stars for the reasons I mentioned in this review. They're off to a good start though, and for what it's worth, the food here does taste a lot healthier than Panda Express lol.
Lastly, the map on the menu is very badly done. It shows the 605 freeway being west of Paramount Blvd, and the restaurant closer to South than Del Amo. Don't look at that map if you want to know where this Orange Grill is located.