Chinese takeout is almost a religion in certain circles, and there is hardly a shortage of places where one can worship in the Valley. Here are two of my favorites, a new one on the west side and another that's been around for several years in Henderson.
Jade Café seats 20, and the beautifully lacquered walls, wood furniture and Chinese sculpture placed throughout the room make it a welcoming place to dine in as well as take out. It belongs to Chinese natives Carl and Lianna Ng, who just relocated to Vegas from Gillette, Wyoming, where they had a successful restaurant called Hong Kong for nearly three decades.
It's easy to see why they were successful. One taste of Lianna's special hot sauce, a fiery red paste she makes with ground pork and a number of other ingredients that she wouldn't divulge, had me eating it out of the plastic containers it is presented in. She told me that she'd like to bottle and sell it under her own label. I'm ready to invest.
Jade Café's wonton soup is exactly like the kind you'd get in Hong Kong, several tender shrimp dumplings in a broth laced with pork and chicken, plus various crisp cut vegetables. It's enormous, a steal at $4.50, and the equal of any in the city.
From the appetizer list, the fried chicken wings are crisp and juicy, perfect to douse with the hot sauce. Fried or steamed dumplings taste commercial, but the roast pork is the best in town, no surprise after I learned that the Ngs buy it from Sam Woo BBQ in Chinatown.
Two dishes not to miss from the house specialties section are General Tso's chicken and house pork, Hunan style. The chicken comes in huge chunks with a light breading, and in a rich, brown sauce shot through with fresh garlic. The pork is mingling with Chinese sausage, a.k.a. lob cheung, in a fiery sauce laced with bean curd, snow peas and celery.
This is a conventional menu with few surprises, as it is tailored to the Western palate, but most of the dishes are fresh and plentiful. Kung pao shrimp has lots of peanuts and a pile of plump shrimp, while scallops in Hunan black-bean sauce are properly salty and hot. I'd come back anytime for any of the meats with string beans, and also for sizzling beef, served on a hot plate and doused with a pepper sauce. The chow mein and fried rice are both delicious, and the kitchen absolutely does not use MSG. I'll be back, as Arnold says.
China a Go-Go has been a well-kept secret among Green Valley Ranch dwellers for several years now, and even though the take-out menu has gone glossy and the restaurant now offers a few more authentic dishes than it did when it opened, it remains true to its original concept: tasty food in trencherman portions.
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I know they can cook here, and I wish they would offer more authentic dishes. Every time I come in for an early lunch, it seems there are attractive dishes layed out for the staff that are not available to the public. Last time it was fried smelts, a delicious-looking house soup and scrambled eggs with seafood and vegetables. "Not for you," said someone behind the counter.
This is a happy place with an open kitchen, and various Chinese dialects spoken by the multilingual staff. A specials blackboard features the two dishes I regularly order here: beef chow fun—rice noodles sautéed with black-bean sauce, bean sprouts, onions, garlic and piles of sizzling beef—and spicy, twice-cooked chicken, Hunan-style, laced with red fagara peppers and a dark, rich sauce.
Should you opt to eat in, the facility is equipped with tables, a condiment station and a self-service soda fountain, but things are rather basic so don't look for much atmosphere.
One of the best appetizers is paper-wrapped chicken: minced chicken in a soy bath that is steamed inside foil wrappers. (No one in this country, it seems, can find any parchment.)
The Thai and Chinese chicken salads are huge. The Thai salad is sweeter and spicier, a better choice, I think. By popular demand, the restaurant also makes pad Thai, both with chicken and shrimp, or a toothsome vegetarian version. Again, the portions are enormous.
Most of the time, the kitchen does pepper garlic wings, an Asian take on Buffalo wings, with a wicked crunch and loads of both the advertised pepper and garlic. Fans of retro-Chinese fare will want to try egg foo yung, a Chinese-American dish. It's especially good when made with shrimp or crab. Also try anything marked with a red chili (indicating spiciness) or a few vegetarian dishes, such as garlic sauce spinach and eggplant with tofu.