Tag Archives: Chinese

Golden Delight Bakery

Posted on March 9, 2011 by | 7 comments


1516 Bethel Road
Columbus, OH 43220-2004
614-459-6888
www.goldendelightbakery.net
Tuesday-Sunday 8:30am-6:00pm, closed Monday

Click here to map it!

If you are exploring the Bethel Road area for an alt.eats adventure, a great place to satisfy a sweet tooth is Golden Delight Bakery. Known far and wide amongst many ethnic communities for their light and fluffy fresh Strawberry Cake, this Chinese (by way of the Philippines) bakery also offers a dizzying array of individually sized sweet and savory treats.

The cakes are Golden Delight are less like cake and more like a pillow-y souffle complemented by an equally light whipped icing. For a quotidian treat, cake rolls are $7.95 and for special occasions (weddings included!), cakes range from a diameter of six inches to large sheets. The fresh strawberry cake is the most popular but there are other flavors such as mango mousse, mocha cappuccino, and taro.

Golden Delight offers a myriad of Cantonese styled pastries great for a breakfast on the go or an afternoon snack. Above left is a coconut pastry with yeasty, lightly sweet bread swirled with light caramel and toasted coconut flakes. Above right is a hot dog supreme, a sweeter take on pigs in a blanket.

Of course, there is also the quintessential barbecue pork pastry. Golden Delight has two varieties, the fluffy steamed bun, and the above, a braided pastry filled with sweet and savoury barbecue pork. These are addictive!

At a little over a dollar a piece, there’s no reason not to stock up on the small buns, a couple more: above left, ham and egg, with a generous squeeze of mayo; above right, melon (which doesn’t actually contain melon), filled with a light custard and is named for the sweet crumb topping. If they are available, definitely try a taro bun!

In addition to its exhaustive list of pastries, Golden Delight also offers steamed buns (veggie, pictured above, sweet red bean, pork, pork and mushroom). As a testament to how popular these buns were, we were only able to snag a veggie bun. Filled with rice vermicelli, shiitake mushrooms, cabbage, and generously seasoned with black pepper, it was both satisfying and delicious! If you have any room left, don’t forget to pick up a couple cream puffs, egg tarts, almond cookies, and sweet loaves of yeasty bread (mixed with cinnamon raisin, coconut, taro, or red bean).

It’s impossible to go wrong with any of these delicious treats. There is always a steady stream of business for cake orders and snack buns. Two of us here at alt.eats may have polished off an entire six inch strawberry cake, without sharing. And others of us may have scarfed four pastries in one sitting, in the name of taste testing. Yes, these baked goods inspire immoderate nomming and we aren’t one bit ashamed of it.

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Lai Lai Asian Kitchen

Posted on December 11, 2010 by | 7 comments

Cuisine: Chinese

6823 E Broad St, Columbus, OH 43213-1516
Phone: (614) 861-3515
Monday – Friday: 11am – 9pm
Saturday and Sunday: 11:30am -9pm

Click here to map it!

A couple of us had heard rumors of an excellent Chinese restaurant on the East Side called Lai Lai. Being that it was hard to pin down specifics such as their regional cuisine specialty, our interest was piqued and we headed east on a recent week night to see what the fuss was all about. Since there were seven of us, we  were able to order quite a bit and get a good feel for their menu. We were a little disappointed to find out that there was not a separate Chinese menu, but after a little conversation with the owner who hails originally from Taiwan, we were assured that there were items with a more authentic flavor and that if need be, the kitchen would prepare special requests with a days notice. First up, the appetizers.

The Crispy Garlic Tofu had a delicately crunchy exterior surrounding soft tofu. The dipping sauce consisted of a mix of yellow hot mustard and duck sauce.

One of the appetizers on the specials menu, the salt and pepper calamari tossed with green onions is a staple in Chinese restaurants.

The Fiery Wontons had good flavor from the mild peppercorn sauce but the ratio of wrapper to filling was left us wanting more.

Dan Dan Noodles is really a misnomer. This dish should really be renamed noodles in peanut sauce.

We were impressed with how quickly the food came out but it might have been because we were one of two tables in the well decorated and spacious dining room. The entrees:

The Smoked Duck was by far everyone’s favorite at the table. So much so that we ordered another serving of it. The duck is placed into these taco-shaped buns (bao), maybe with a smear or two of hoisin sauce, and eaten immediately. While some of us opted out of the bao (it was tough, especially when it got cold), the flavor of the duck was spot on, infused with tea smoke and much like ones I’ve had in Asia.

The Taiwanese Style Noodle was more wet than we were used to seeing and nothing in the flavors jumped out at us as particularly Taiwanese. This is a good detour if you’d like to try something other than Lo Mein.

Coming from a group of adventurous eaters, we were all surprised to see that the Twice Cooked Pork was very lean. Traditionally made from pork belly, Lai Lai makes their’s with lean pork to make it more accessible to their customers. This was also more saucy than we were used to.

Fiery Szechuan Fish Filet with just the tiniest hint of numbing Sichuan peppercorns.

Any respectable Chinese restaurant has to have excellent greens that are simply stir-fried. Lai Lai was no exception: one of the first plates to be cleaned, the Shanghai Bok Choy (also known as baby bok choy) was still crispy with just a hint of garlic.

The Sa Cha Beef with Choy Sum was also well received. The owner offered to make us this dish off the menu since we were looking for more Taiwanese flavored dishes. Sa Cha is a type of condiment similar to oyster sauce but with a smokier and seafood-y flavor. Here, it is stir-fried with choy sum (closer to bok choy than Chinese broccoli) and beef. Though this was not as fancy as some of the above dishes, it was home-style and went great with a bowl of steamed rice.

We had hoped that the menu offerings would appeal to both novice and experienced palates with the inclusion of classic Chinese appetizers such as marinated cucumbers, vegetarian duck, and drunken chicken. Despite this, we cleaned every single plate and were so full that we didn’t get a chance to try the lauded desserts in Lai Lai’s display case. Our expectations were high but nonetheless, we had a good meal with great company. If we’re ever hungry, east of 270, we’ll be sure to keep Lai Lai’s in mind.

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Poong Mei (Spring of China)

Posted on March 15, 2010 by | 1 comment

Cuisine: Chinese
4720 Reed Road, near Reed and Henderson.
614.273.9998

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Poong Mei Asian Bistro is the restaurant also/formerly known as Spring of China. The owners realized that the original name was misleading as their offerings span Chinese, Korean and Japanese, but the transition to a new name seems to be very gradual. We were told that Poong Mei means successful in Chinese, tasty in Korean and beautiful in Japanese and the owners thought that all of these were auspicious for their business.

The menu is divided into Chinese/ Western, Chinese, Korean/Japanese and Korean and there are some interesting selections in each. Our interest was piqued by a rumor that they made their own noodles in house, which indeed they do – there is a whole page devoted to them. They also make their own dumplings from scratch.

The restaurant has a little more of a Korean feel than Chinese, especially when we were presented with a banchan-like selection of kim chi and  pickles.

The dumplings are available steamed and boiled. On the advice of our server we opted for the steamed. The dumplings were large, and the dough on the thicker side, but both the filling and the dough were obviously freshly made. The filling was pork with vegetables and was fragrant with ginger and with flecks of scallion. My understanding from the menu is that the boiled dumplings have a thinner skin and there are 15 in the serving.

The same filling is used for the pork buns. As you can see the portion size for both is very generous and certainly good for sharing.

We wanted to try the noodles and opted for zha jhang myun – hand made noodles with chopped vegetables, pork and shrimp in black bean sauce. The black bean sauce had more of a fermented smoky flavor than the store bought versions – it was pure umami. The texture of the hand made noodles was good, but the dominance of the black bean sauce made it hard to discern their flavor.

Salt and pepper crispy squid is one of our favorite dishes at Yau’s and we decided to order it for the sake of comparison (and because we can’t resist crispy squid). They were more battered and crunchy than Yau’s and were utterly addictive.

The last dish we tried were the crispy tofu balls with bok choi and ginger and garlic sauce. The tofu balls (which contained shrimp as well) were really good and a pleasant variation on the usual tofu preparations. While the outside was crispy the inside was deceptively light and moist. Perhaps a dish that could win over tofu skeptics. 

Poong Mei has enough range in its menu to please both fans of American Chinese food and more intrepid diners with everything from sweet and sour chicken to boiled pork feet, sea cucumber and jelly fish.

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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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