A New Chinese Restaurant with Real Potential--But They're Still Finding Their Footing…read more
Opening a new restaurant is never easy, and it shows here. The good news is that they already have several dishes that are genuinely excellent. The less-good news is that a few recipes and the overall dining experience still need some work. The encouraging part? Most of the issues are very fixable.
Let's start with the highlights. The Crab Rangoon is outstanding--crispy, creamy, and easily a 5-star appetizer. The Mongolian Beef is another winner with great flavor and generous portions. One thing I really appreciated is that most entrées include a good amount of fresh vegetables instead of just meat and sauce.
Unfortunately, some of the signature dishes miss the mark. General Tso's Chicken should be a perfect balance of sweet, savory, tangy, spicy, and rich garlic-ginger flavor with a glossy glaze that clings to crispy chicken. Instead, the sauce tasted more like a generic brown sauce--almost no sweetness, very little heat, and none of the bold flavors that make General Tso's so popular. The chicken itself was also overcooked, losing the crispy-yet-juicy texture you'd expect.
The House Special Egg Foo Young was another disappointment. A great Egg Foo Young should have crispy golden edges, a fluffy interior, and a thick, flavorful brown gravy. This version was simply a fluffy omelet covered in a thin brown sauce. It wasn't bad--it just wasn't really Egg Foo Young as most people know it.
The Appetizer Sampler was a mixed bag:
* Crab Rangoon: Excellent.
* Shrimp: Crispy, crunchy, and well cooked.
* Dumplings: Very good.
* Chicken Wings: Nice crispy skin but almost no seasoning.
* Vegetable Spring Roll: Crispy wrapper, but the vegetables inside were overcooked and mushy.
* Potstickers: Too chewy--almost jerky-like.
Thankfully, the sampler came with two dipping sauces that elevated several of the items.
The Egg Drop Soup deserves a mention as well. It arrived piping hot, was flavorful, and earned a solid 4 out of 5 stars.
The Biggest Opportunity: Service
This is where management has the greatest opportunity to improve.
We arrived at 7:00 PM on a Friday, and there were only four occupied tables. We were seated immediately, our drinks arrived quickly, and then...we waited.
After sitting with menus for about seven minutes, our order was finally taken. The Egg Drop Soup arrived several minutes later, and because it was so hot, I ate it slowly. By the time I had finished, we were still waiting for our appetizers. Nearly 30 minutes after being seated, they finally arrived.
My wife, who was facing the entrance, noticed what was happening: a constant stream of takeout orders leaving the restaurant. It felt very similar to a fast-food restaurant where the drive-thru gets priority while dine-in customers wait.
After finishing our appetizers, there was another long wait before our entrées arrived.
Meanwhile, two tables had already left, new guests had been seated, and one of the empty tables still hadn't been cleared nearly 30 minutes later.
The restaurant appeared to have only one waitress covering the dining room. She was genuinely friendly, worked hard, and did everything she could. This didn't feel like a server problem--it felt like a management and staffing problem. A little more attention to the dining room instead of focusing almost exclusively on takeout orders would make a huge difference.
Final Thoughts
This restaurant is closer to being very good than you might think. They already have several dishes that I'd happily order again, and in some cases they're better than much of the Chinese food available in Athens.
If management can:
* Refine a few signature recipes (especially the General Tso's Chicken and Egg Foo Young),
* Improve consistency on some appetizers,
* Balance dine-in service with takeout orders, and
* Add a little more attention to the dining room,
they could easily become one of the better Chinese restaurants in town.
Current rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
The food shows flashes of excellence. With a few recipe adjustments and better service management, I wouldn't be surprised to see this become a solid 4 1/2-star restaurant in the near future.
