Golden Garden Chinese

I think it is safe to say that our number one complaint about living in Pennsylvania is the lack of good Asian food. While we have a good Japanese hibachi place and a decent Vietnamese place (but that one's not very close) we have yet to find good sushi or Chinese. And I haven't even seen a Mongolian place at all.

Well, we really felt like Chinese food. Again. It was lunchtime on a Sunday and Jonathan looked up a dim sum place online. We headed out to northeast Philly to find it... but it was gone. We seemed to be in an Asian area, but every place was closed. We used the GPS to find some general Chinese place, but the ones in the area it sent us to were also all closed. We just drove until we found one that was open (passing at least another three closed places on the way). I'm at a loss to explain why there are that many closed places at lunchtime on Sunday, but whatever.

We found a parking spot a hundred yards or so from Golden Garden Chinese Restaurant on Rising Sun Avenue. We walked in and looked at the menu a bit before making a big order (planning on feasting upon lunch and dinner from this place). Given that fact, I'm gonna bullet-point the items and our thoughts on them.


*Crab Rangoon - Jonathan liked it. He thought it was light on the crab, but I still didn't care for it. They were big pieces, and we got 10 for $3.50, so it was a really good deal.
*Shrimp Eggroll - it was okay. It was very thick and a little longer than the average, so a steal for $1.20 (or possibly free, it's hard to tell since we didn't receive an itemized receipt). It was very garlicky, which was surprising. There were two small shrimp inside, but otherwise it was pure cabbage. It was fried really well, so it made for a tasty appetizer. I'd try the pork next time.
*Egg Drop Soup - pretty good, Jonathan said.
*Wonton Soup - plain. The broth was good but very plain. Very few scallions, which is a downside for me. The wontons themselves were quite large, but nothing super-special. General soup note - the "crunchies" they give you weren't the standard kind... they were more like smooth, enclosed pieces of penne... only baked. Still good.
*Beef Szechuan - good. Jonathan wolfed down a good portion of it before taking a break to tell me how it was, LoL.
*Chicken Szechuan - disappointing. It wasn't spicy-hot at all, despite having two markings as such in the menu. It wasn't bad, and we did only pay like $4.25 for it, but still sad.
*Chicken Chow Mein - remind me not to order this in the Northeast again! They just don't seem to make it the same as other place at all! As with Osaka, there were no noodles. It had that same junky sauce. The flavor was again very moo goo gai pan. After I picked out all of the cabbage it was edible.
*General Tso's Chicken - not really even worth talking about. It had a nice flavor, but was boring and (again) not spicy.
*Pork Fried Rice - came with the meals. It had onions and beansprouts, no other veggies. Kinda plain, but not bad. After I added soy sauce, it improved some, but not a lot.