So, someone stupid in the house (I'm also the only one who cooks), almost burnt down the entire…read moreplace... The range is currently in the driveway and until we get a new one on Thursday, cooking here will be limited. After an entire day of cleaning where the old oven was, cleaning the entire kitchen and preparing the natural gas line for the new stove, we thought takeout would be a fantastic idea. What's better than Chinese too, to stretch into an extra meal that is easily microwavable or can be warmed in our toaster oven...
We wanted to try somewhere new and I thought Dragon & Phoenix might be a good choice. Close to the house and somewhere we've seen over the years, but never tried. The menu looks extensive and they had one of my favorites. Lemon Chicken! We went with that, lobster fried rice, General Tso's, and wonton soup. We placed an order on Sunday night around 5:30 and was told it would be twenty minutes.
Walking in, I was surprised to see a couple of tables if you wanted to dine there. A lot of people working in the kitchen and one worker was bringing a tray of wontons over. I was impressed by what I saw, we paid and zoomed on home.
First of all, it was incredible to have smells other than smoke in the house... I'm an idiot... We planned on making lemonade this evening, so I grabbed a piece of my lemon chicken, while I quickly juiced some lemons. This was good. Real good... Among the best lemon chicken I've had. It reminds me of a better version of the type I ate all of the time when I was younger. All of the other places that I can find with lemon chicken deep fry the chicken so it's crispy with a lemon sauce. Don't get me wrong, I love crispy chicken. Maybe if I wasn't an idiot with cooking oil, because I enjoyed crispy stuff, I'd still have an oven too... This lemon chicken had a crunch, but still that soggy interior that I grew to love. When we eat, don't we want to be reminded of past experiences? There isn't anything better.
The wonton soup was good, the General Tso's worked, but had a really nice looking red sauce glaze on it. I didn't want the lobster fried rice, but I enjoyed the fried rice part. This fried rice had the flavors I wanted, but I would prefer more traditional proteins in there. I don't care though, I wanted the lemon chicken and that was the only battle I wanted to fight... My wife loved the lemon chicken too. Well, she doesn't love anything, probably not even me, but it was acceptable to her. Just the fact that she took so many pieces of it, means it was pretty good.
Finally, the fortune cookie was among the best I've had. Those orange, vanilla, chocolate ones? So great! This place just reminds me of college so much. Not those authentic chinese places that I frequent more of, but just a local Americanized Chinese place. Why didn't we come here earlier?