It was Friday, and we're Catholic. So having previously done well with meatless Chinese food, we headed over to King Wah for some takeout. (Really surprised to learn they don't deliver but that's another topic.)
A very clean & bright little restaurant that looked like it would be a pleasure to dine in, lovely wall art and little Chinese lanterns. A happy sign announced the password for the free Wi-Fi. (A much sadder one announced 'cash only.') Staff was cheerful and friendly and happy to answer questions, Unfortunately, there was one question I did not ask, and that was my downfall.
My husband ordered Crab with Broccoli and I went for the Sea King (which was stated to contain shrimp, scallop and crab). Got some vegetable fried rice, plus two egg rolls too for good measure, and the wallet impact was very light indeed.
Now, I know that crab is pricey, so we were not expecting big chunks of crab meat in a $9.00 dish -- I was expecting a reasonable amount of shredded crab meat mixed in with the sauce. What we got was some "imitation" stuff made of mystery fish, compounded together with some kind of fillers, and some red coloring added to give a resemblance to crab. The texture was like one of those green florist sponges when it's fully soaked -- thick and solid, and the taste was probably close to those sponges too. I admit it looked like crab, but as soon as we saw those huge chunks, we knew we were in trouble.
My dish was somewhat more bearable as there was less of the non-crab. The scallops were very tiny bay scallops and not too many of them. The shrimp, fortunately, was the saving grace. The vegetables and sauce were tasty too, but that gross tasteless STUFF completely offset the positives.
It was very offensive, too, that they have the audacity to call this stuff crab and not honestly state that it's the imitation stuff. Even then it would have been a fail as this was one of the poorer imitations.
The egg rolls were really good, for which I'm grateful. The fried rice was average.
Due to the positive reviews on other dishes, though, I believe we will give King Wah another shot one time with some beef, chicken or pork, cold noodles, egg fu young, etc. But seafood? NEVER. I'm scarred for life. read more