China Jade

Posted on March 12, 2010 by | 1 comment

Cuisine: Vietnamese
6104 Boardwalk St
614.847.1230
Hours: Tues-Thurs; 11am – 10pm, Fri-Sat; 11am – 11pm, Sun; 11am-9pm

Click here to map it!

‘I know this place that has great Vietnamese food.  Ignore the name, just order off of the Vietnamese menu.’  So said one of our sources for all things Asian in Columbus.  Who were we to argue?

China Jade’s space is unremarkable and clean.  Service was friendly and more than willing to work around the language barrier. After flipping through the massive ‘Chinese’ section of the menu (written entirely in English), we found the ‘Vietnamese and Chinese’ offering (written in Chinese, Vietnamese, and English) and dove in.

From the apps we ordered pork skin spring rolls, jelly fish, and mandarin duck.

Pork skin spring rolls – hmmm.  To the best of our ability to discern, the ‘pork skin’ component was a dry, dusty and largely flavorless powder.  The remainder of the roll was as expected, but the pork dust seemed to dampen enthusiasm for all who tried it.

The jellyfish, on the other hand, was a hit.  Presented as a salad, the thin strands of jellyfish were a slightly chewy counterpoint to the carrots and cabbage that accompanied.  All were an excellent conveyence for the dressing – a sweet and salty mix laced with sesame.

The duck was the most controversial of the trio.  It was crudely chopped (bone-in) and served in a somewhat sweet brown sauce. The flesh was neither exceedingly tender nor tough.  I enjoyed it, but opinions certainly varied. Generous in quantity, it seemed a good value at $7, but there was some understandable grousing about the effort involved in separating the flesh from bone and gristle.

From the ‘meal in a bowl’ section we ordered bun cha gio thit nuong (egg roll w/rice vermicelli and grilled pork), and from the ‘rice platter’ section we ordered com suon nuong (grilled pork chops).


No complaints on the bun cha – nice crunchy egg rolls, tender well seasoned pork, the usual rice noodles, all topped with scallions and  chopped peanuts. Nice.  The com suon nuong was an even more of a crowd pleaser – its sweet, crunchy, coriander spiked crust (deep fried?) gave way to succulent pork chop goodness.

A Malaysian foodie friend (and co-conspirator) of ours dropped this bit of wisdom on us: first-generation Asian restauranteurs in the US often come from a street vendor background in which they were expert at preparing a very small selection of dishes at a very high level in their country of origin.  They generally feel compelled to offer a much wider variety of options in the US, but it is usually the dishes they perfected in their days as a street vendor that really shine.  This might just explain the veritable mantra we’ve heard from quite a few other Asian friends of ours – don’t seek the right restaurant, seek the right dish from the restaurant.

This relates to China Jade in the sense that we had some items we loved and some we weren’t so crazy about…  and given the above theory, that’s probably as it should be.  We suspect that there still might be a gem or two here we haven’t uncovered yet, so stay tuned.

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Posted in Asian, Restaurant, Vietnamese

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Jeddo Kabab

Posted on March 11, 2010 by | 3 comments

Cuisine: Persian
New Location
2171 E Dublin Granville Road,Columbus.
http://jeddokabab.com/
614.794.1202
Hours: Tue – Thurs; 11:30am – 9:00pm, Fri & Sat; 11:30am – 10:00pm, Sun; 12:30pm – 8:00pm

Click here to map it!

To the best of our knowledge, Jeddo Kabab is the only Persian restaurant in central Ohio.  Shame that, but if one’s all we get, this’ll do just fine.

Jeddo’s dining room is small, fastidiously well kept, and maintains a small market selection of prepackaged Persian foodstuffs for sale.  Seat yourself if you’re eating in, head to the back counter to place carry out orders.

The menu manages to be, at least for those with some awareness of Middle Eastern cuisine, both familiar and unique.  Falafel and baba ganoush sit next to items like kubideh and kashk o bademgon.

Kashk o bademgon it was, for starters.  This appetizer is described on the menu as ‘a delightful mixture of eggplant, onion, and garlic with traditional whey’.  The photo might not sell it, but your first taste will.  This deliciously rich concoction, served with plenty of pita for dipping, instantly reminded me of an artichoke dip… but better.  A dish that is sure to convert even the most fervent of eggplant haters.

Next, we tried the bahktiari – a platter with chicken kebab (which included grilled vegetables), a ground lamb skewer, salad, and rice.

A quick digression – chicken, for me, is usually an automatic skip… something I tend to think of as a restaurant’s sop to calorie obsessives and the unadventurous.

Suffice it to say, the chicken on the bahktiari was anything but a sop.  It was as tender as properly cooked chicken flesh could possibly be, marinated in a delicious but unidentifiable mix of flavors (that the proprietors were altogether unwilling to divulge), and grilled to perfection. Truly chicken that could compete with lamb.

Which is not to suggest that the lamb was sub-par in any way.  Skewer grilled, and spiced similarly a traditional kefta, this hefty spike of ground meat satisfied completely.

As did it’s beef counterpart, a kubideh, listed as a sandwich and wrapped in a pita.  A large one, too… I’d guess the whole thing measured out at 10″ in length.  Onions, lettuce, and a tahini-esque ‘Jeddo sauce’ complete this tasty package.

We hope it’d be obvious by this point that we highly recommend Jeddo Kabab. Having operated for 8 years and counting (a lifetime in strip mall restaurant years), we’re probably not the only ones.

All of Jeddo Kabab’s offerings are halal.

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Posted in Iranian, Persian, Restaurant

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Little Dragons

Posted on March 11, 2010 by | 6 comments

Cuisine: Chinese
1508 Morse Road (Morse and Karl)
614.846.9114
Open 7 days a week. Sun-Thursday 11-10pm, Saturday & Sunday 11-11pm
Lunch specials 11-3pm, Dim Sum Saturday & Sunday 11-3pm

Click here to map it!

Like many Chinese restaurants Little Dragons has a split personality. On one side it has a busy take-out counter offering standard Chinese-American fare with Kung Pao, Orange chicken and General Tso representing. On the other side a more authentic Chinese menu with such exotic ingredients as sea cucumbers, conch and balsam pear (bitter gourd).

We opted for some of the more standard offerings from the Chinese menu: snow pea leaves (the menu calls them leeks) sauteed with garlic, spicy crispy tofu, and double fried cooked pork.

The double fried cooked pork, made with slices of pork belly, was unsurprisingly greasy but very flavorful. The belly was stir fried with carrot, cabbage, onion and bamboo shoots, and seasoned heavily with 5 spice powder and hot oil. Good with steamed rice.

I love snow pea leaves and am always pleased to see them on a menu. Little Dragons’ version seemed as much steamed as sauteed and with very little oil, lots of garlic and very fresh tasting. A good antidote to the pork belly.

The tofu with snow peas and pak choi was sound but unexceptional.

The only disappointment of the batch was the scallion pancake which was overly bread-y and insufficiently scallion-y. The typical scallion pancake should almost resemble an Indian paratha in texture with more scallions incorporated into and between the dough.

Little Dragons has a fairly large, partitioned dining room, decorated with fairly typical Chinese decorations and is very clean. The service on our visit was little lackluster as we spent some of the meal trying to flag down our server.  Nonetheless, the food arrived promptly and they were more than willing to answer questions.

Little Dragons serve a selection of bottled beer. If you are grabbing a takeout menu, be advised that there are two versions of it. One has the standard Chinese-American fare and the other includes the authentic dishes listed.

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Arirang

Posted on March 11, 2010 by | 18 comments

Cuisine: Korean
1526 Bethel Road
614.459.8070
Open until 9pm

Click here to map it!

Arirang was first recommended to me by a Hungrywoolf reader (Thank you Molly). It has become my favorite place for Korean food, and I thought that it was still a wonderful secret until G.A. Benton from Columbus Alive wrote his humorous post about it this week.

From the outside you would never guess that this little grocery store has a restaurant in the  back. You order at the store’s front counter and then take your ticket to the open kitchen at the back of the store. Find a seat and wait to be signaled to when your food is ready. There is no table service so you go up to the counter and collect it yourself. The menu has recently been updated and is in English and Korean with a clear indication of which dishes are spicy. There are three price brackets ranging from $4.95 up to $8.95.

With its extremely bright fluorescent lighting and slightly sterile feel, Arirang is not somewhere to go for the atmosphere but what it lacks in ambience it makes up for with the food. It is also extremely clean, good value and you can do some shopping while you are there.

Your meal will come with the traditional banchan (a selection of small dishes, including the requisite kimchi.) and there is an urn of complimentary barley tea as well as a water cooler.

My favorite dishes tend to be the spicy ones but there are plenty of options for people who do not like spicy food. Some of the beef soups are very lightly seasoned. The dolsot bibimbap (mixed rice in a stone pot) is also not spicy and comes topped with lots of vegetables, sprouts and kimchi. The egg was fried with a soft yolk rather than the raw egg that is often served. As well as large steaming bowls of soup and noodles there are also stir fried dishes and I really enjoyed the stir fried pork.

The picture at the top of the post is kim-bap, a Korean roll (a vegetarian sushi style roll) and we have enjoyed the crispy pancakes both mung bean and seafood.

The soups are extremely hot in temperature and usually arrive at a rolling boil. If you are really hungry, order a pancake or a roll to eat while you wait, to prevent searing your mouth. Also a good idea not to go right before they close – it’s hard to eat steaming food in a hurry!

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Posted in Asian, Grocery store, Korean, Restaurant

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African Paradise

Posted on March 11, 2010 by | 9 comments


Cuisine: Somali
2263 Morse Road
614.476.2163
Hours: 7:30am – 10:00pm

Click here to map it!

A bit of advice – just go with the flow when at African Paradise.  From the odd, vaguely Bourbon Street-esque exterior to a menu that, willy nilly, mixes cuisine categories with food items with Friday specials with – hey, no prices on anything? – much about this Somali restaurant will confound the more logically inclined.

Do hang loose, though, because African Paradise has an awful lot to recommend it.

Stepping inside, we found a large, clean space with minimal decor and low lighting.  Our party of 5 was seated between a prayer room and a ‘ladies only’ room (a dining area sectioned off with accordion doors, presumably created to allow Muslim women to dine without the unwanted intrusion of the male gaze).

After trying to make sense of the menu, we decided to simply use it as a starting point for conversation.  The servers were more than happy to explain everything, and if they felt as though they had failed on any point they were quick to provide samples to clear up the confusion.   Such was the case with the mufo and the jabati – both were flat breads, what was the difference?  Their answer:

Turns out, mufo is a dense, tart and chewy cornmeal-based flatbread, while jabati is something like a wheat flour-based cousin to the Indian chapati. These were served with a delicious dipping sauce that Hungrywoolf described as tasting like a curried marinara*.

‘Did we like?’ asked the waiter.  Indeed we did.  With that, a proposition: ‘You can order single dishes for each person, or I can do a large family style dish for everyone with four different choices on it’.  After much discussion, we settled on the family style spread and added rice, more jabati, soup, salad,  mango juice, and Somali tea. All or some of which may or may not have come with the family style meal.  Bottled water was also included.

Soup and tea arrived first. The soup was a simple vegetable mix in a rich chicken broth, and was enjoyed by all.  The Somali tea was reminiscent of chai with strong cardamom notes, but achingly sweet.

Then the main dish:

That’s roasted goat, chicken, and two types of fish (salmon and, um, something else?) The goat was a revelation – while there was some variation between pieces, it was moist, tender, delicately flavored, and as good as any goat any of us had ever tasted.  The chicken was reminiscent of an off-the-bone Indian tandoori, though in my opinion more flavorful and more tender.  Both fishes were seasoned similarly to the chicken and were delicious though perhaps a bit on the dry side.  The rice was subtle with just a hint of cardamom and made for a perfect accompaniment to the proteins.

Quantities were generous – the photo with the oversized serving spoon fails to illustrate this point.  The five of us indulged to our hearts content and had plenty of leftovers.

Now for the check.

Wait… you’ve got to be kidding.  $33?  For everything…. for all 5 of us?! Yeah, we’ll be back… especially since AP has some intriguing breakfast menu items.

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*The marinara analogy is interesting because Somalia was briefly colonized by Italy and Italian culinary influence persists to this day.  Pasta items are not unusual in Somali restaurants and were in ample evidence on AP’s menu as well.

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Posted in Somali

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