Probably my last five times eating Chinese food it’s been at the Empress of China. I love that place and have been kind of stuck on it. I’ve always heard good things about China Doll. I tried it once so long ago I couldn’t remember if I liked it or not, so I figured I’d pay them a visit for lunch today.
For appetizers we decided on Crab Rangoon and what they called Fried Prawns. I asked the waitress if that was like tempura shrimp and she said it was. As you can see below the menu said you get six of them:
Seems like Crab Rangoon is the same every where you go. Fried Wonton wrappers full of cream cheese. These had the cream cheese, but with a nice twist. Bacon! Bacon makes everything better! And they had a nice crabby flavor too. They were great.
And as far as the shrimp, it must have been six monster shrimp that they cut in several pieces and fried. Sure seemed like a lot more than six. They were also very good.
For our entrees my dining partner decided on the Sweet & Sour Pork combination plate, which came with shrimp fried rice and an egg roll. I saw this on the menu:
Crispy Duck. I absolutely love duck! I ordered it and the waitress told me that dish takes 45 minutes to prepare. She said it’s a whole, half a duck. We were kind of pressed for time and even if not, I was starving too much to wait 45 minutes. Maybe in the future I’ll come back in try it, but today I decided to settle for a land duck. Mandarin Chicken.
The food:
My dining partner ordered hot tea. They brought her a whole pot of Oolong with three tea bags in it. She was in no danger of running out of tea.
She said her Sweet & Sour pork plate was pretty good, but felt the pork could have been seasoned a little more.
If you order the Mandarin Chicken entrĆ©e, bring help. You get two, huge layers of crispy, delicious Mandarin Chicken, a bowl of rice big enough to feed a few people, and a nice sized bowl of “gravy”. It was delicious. Oh, and I asked for the gravy on the side. Otherwise it would have been poured over the chicken. I hate running out of gravy and I find I get more if I get it on the side.
Great lunch. I will be back to try that duck!
830 Manhattan Blvd., Harvey, LA 70058 Ph:504-366-8822
Blaine 8-31-2019
SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT:
Back in for dinner tonight. We decided on:
******************** THE FOOD ********************
Anytime we do Chinese my dining partner gets won ton soup. She said this one was good, but not her favorite. Her favorite is at 3 Happiness.
The crab rangoon is still tasty, but don’t try to find a shred of crab in it. Not sure why they don’t just call them cream cheese rangoon. Either way, I like them!
The shrimp fried rice was shrimp packed and delicious!
The Egg Foo Young was outstanding! Served with a nice sized bowl of gravy too. We couldn’t finish the entire dish but ate almost all of the gravy. When we asked for to go boxes, our waitress went to the kitchen and packed us a bowl of gravy to go without us even asking for it. Very nice of her.
Great dinner.
830 Manhattan Blvd., Harvey, LA 70058 Ph:504-366-8822
Blaine 2-4-2023
BLAINE'S RESTAURANT REPORT 
Three things: 1) the state of NJ lacks a lot of things, but quality Chinese food is not one of them. While your food looks good (the egg foo young in particular), it also looks kind of plain compared to ours. 2) I wish more NJ sit-down Chinese restaurants had bars. Most are takeout places. The rest are “Asian Fusion” (Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc) which are hit or miss. The funny thing is that most sit-down places with a bar have been around since the 60’s or 70’s and have that “stuck in time” feel. The new places do not seem to cut it. 3) I forgot the third when I set out to write this, but I’ve had a few martinis! š
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If I ever get up there I’ll make it a point to hit one of y’all Chinese restaurants. We’re not known for Chinese food down here. I guess we never had an influx of Chinese immigrants. Italian? Yes. And a lot of Vietnamese. They settled here after the fall of Saigon because New Orleans has a similar climate to Vietnam.
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Sorry- Mandarin Chicken, not egg foo young! It looks the same to me!
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You need to go with a crowd to Chinese restaurants because of the generous portions and that way you can try more dishes,
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Yep. Sounds like a good plan!
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Yummy!
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