Chinese restaurants Archives

Formosa Chinese Restaurant

October 5, 2015

Formosa Chinese restaurant is a dining-out institution in Hixson, Tennessee. They serve delicious Chinese food with great, friendly service.

How have I not written about Formosa Chinese restaurant? That’s a rhetorical question, I suppose, but Formosa is one of Hixson’s longest-standing restaurant and (since Mandarin Garden closed) the place that we generally go to get Chinese food close to home. However, every time that we’ve gone I, for one reason or another, haven’t been in a blog post mood (it was never because I didn’t like the food, but, for example, I remember that we went there one time the night before I had surgery).

It was raining cats and dogs Saturday and I was definitely not feeling going out of the Hixson area, particularly not to any spot where we would have to do a lot of walking (i.e. downtown). We considered the tiny handful of Hixson places that we still have yet to visit and Philip pointed out that we really should go to Formosa, considering how long it’s been around. It’s really a Hixson institution. Please excuse the awful photos in this post….it’s very dark in the restaurant.

We were seated immediately and given lunch menus, since it was only around 1 p.m. The lunch menu is considerably smaller than the dinner menu, with a few specials (mostly chow meins and egg foo young plus few other standards like sweet and sour chicken) listed on one side that included either an egg roll or soup and then another list of entrees on the other side. My favorite thing about Formosa (I’m just being honest here) is that they bring you a bowl of fried wonton strips (which I call Chinese potato chips). Those things are just addictive. They also bring sweet and sour sauce to dip them into, but I really am indifferent to that.

We ordered our meals off the specials menu. We both wanted soup and and egg roll so we ordered egg rolls separately. I like that their egg rolls don’t have any weird pink meat (the meat is pink because of curing salt, but that doesn’t make it any less bizarre in my opinion). They are filled with ground pork, baby shrimp, and cabbage. They were brought out immediately, which might make you worry that they wouldn’t be fresh, but they were fresh, crispy, and hot. The server brought us some hot mustard too, but aside from a tiny fingertip dab that I tasted it was too hot for me. I ordered egg drop soup, which was hot, well seasoned, and had lots of egg and green onion in it. Philip had wonton soup. He said that the wontons seemed housemade and that the soup was also tasty and well-seasoned.

I decided to get the chicken with mushrooms, which is described in their dinner menu as “sliced chicken breast sautéed with mushrooms, water chestnuts, and snow peas in a light sauce”. There were also carrots and pieces of cabbage in the sauté, and it was served with fried rice. Their fried rice is more basic than most, basically just seasoned and fried and not mixed with carrots, peas, and eggs, but still quite good. The portion of sauté was fairly large, large enough for me to bring home probably more than half of it to have for lunch the next day. Everything was well cooked, the vegetables just crisp tender (besides the mushrooms, which were very tender) and the chicken very thinly sliced and very tender considering that it’s chicken breast, which tends to be dry. The sauce was indeed light and not overly salted. The thing I like about Formosa is that I don’t feel bloated and icky like I do after eating at some Chinese restaurants (I think it’s MSG that makes me feel that way, though I know a lot of people dispute the whole MSG negative effects theory).

Philip had the beef chow mein, which is very thin slices of beef sautéed with Napa cabbage, onion, zucchini, and carrots and is also served with fried rice. The meat was incredibly tender and the sauce light and nicely seasoned. The vegetables were nicely cooked, crisp-tender just like mine were, and Philip also had enough to bring home for lunch. My friends, it is never sad to have leftovers to throw in the microwave when you arrive home starving after church.

Like I said, the dinner menu is much larger than the lunch menu, with soups, appetizers (including chicken fingers and fries, which always makes me laugh), family dinners (for families of 2, 4, 5, or 6), vegetable dishes, Chef’s Specialties (including sesame chicken and General Tsao’s-their spelling-which is different from what is served at most Chinese restaurants, as it is thinly sliced instead of just spicier sesame chicken). They have sections of seafood, chicken, beef, pork, duck, plus chow meins, lo meins, chop suey, fried rice, and egg foo young.

The decor in Formosa Chinese restaurant, I’m not going to lie, is a little dated. Honestly, I don’t think it’s changed one iota since I was a kid in the eighties and would go in with my parents to get take-out (not that I ever ate it, I wouldn’t have touched that stuff with a twenty-foot pole as a child). I don’t really care too much about decor, though. I mean, if a place has great decor, I’ll notice, but I’m more concerned about the food and service. Our service was quick and friendly (if very business-like) and the food is consistent and always good. I know it’s “American Chinese”, but where do you find anything but around here? Formosa Chinese restaurant is a great place…it’s not going anywhere any time soon.

Formosa Chinese restaurant is located at 5425 Highway 153, Hixson, Tennessee, 37343. They are open daily from 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. You can call them at 423-875-6953. You can view their menu on their website, formosa-restaurant.com. You can also like Formosa on Facebook.

Hong Kong Chinese (East Brainerd)

February 23, 2015

Hong Kong Chinese restaurant is a great Chinese restaurant with delicious food and great service on East Brainerd Road in Chattanooga.
I didn’t start eating Chinese food until I was a junior in college. Actually, it was probably more to impress a guy than anything else…but he married me so I guess it all turned out okay. Plus, it turned out that I actually liked Chinese food…I have no idea why I was always so convinced that I wouldn’t. I guess it’s too late to wonder, though. Anyway, when we were dating and early in our marriage, Philip and I used to frequent China Inn, a Chinese buffet in the TJ Maxx complex at Northgate. Friendly staff, good prices, and great food-we loved that place! We were crushed when it closed, though we shifted our affections toward Mandarin Garden…which then closed. And Philip doesn’t like Formosa (for the record, I do). In fact, we have found the Chinese options in our area to be rather disappointing overall.

However, Philip has a friend who lives in East Brainerd and they frequently visit Hong Kong Chinese, which is in the complex where the East Brainerd Publix is. I know when they’ve been because Philip comes home with a box of cereal, a telltale sign that he had to buy something in order to get cash back at checkout-Hong Kong only accepts cash or checks. He has sworn to me for a couple of years now that the food at Hong Kong is delicious, but it’s a little bit of a trek especially when you never carry cash, so it’s taken us a little time to get out there.

It’s been quite a week here in Chattanooga, what with ice and snow and temperatures nearing zero. Us Southerners aren’t built for that type of weather and neither are our Public Works departments…I mean, it really doesn’t make financial sense to spend a lot of money to purchase a lot of equipment meant to deal with weather events that may happen once or twice a year if that. So…I was off work all week (and I might add…Tennessee schools tack a little time on to the end of each day so that snow days are built in, so it’s not like we just get free days-I’ve seen a little complaining about that this week) and feeling just a little stir crazy after being in the house 95% of the week. We ventured out in still a little bit of slush so Philip could check out the craft beer selection at Sigler’s, then we headed to the Kitchen Spice Indian store next the to East Brainerd Goodwill…then we went to Publix and bought cereal so we could eat at Hong Kong.

There were no other customers eating in the restaurant, which looks pretty much like your stereotypical mom and pop Chinese restaurant-a few basic tables, some floral border on the walls, and pictures of menu items above the counters. The people in the back were very busy preparing to-go orders and the phone rang frequently (not to mention the steady stream of people picking up their orders). The lady who took our order recognized Philip and told him that they were out of tofu, because apparently he likes to order tofu. Anyway….

We got there at 3:01 so we were just a little too late to order off of the lunch specials menu, which includes entree, chicken fried rice, an egg roll, and soup or a soda. Instead, for $15 and some change (plus a little that Philip dropped in the tip jar), we ordered the combination plates. When I asked Philip what was good off of their very large (as Chinese menus tend to be) menu, he assured me that everything he’d had was good (by the way, I’ve included the menu at the bottom of the post). In the end I got an order of sesame chicken and he decided on chicken with cashew nuts. Each order came with chicken fried rice and an egg roll, and we drank water.

Sesame chicken is my favorite Chinese menu item but I often find that the sauce is so thick and sweet that it becomes cloying. I did not find this to be an issue with this chicken, which was sweet but not tooth-aching, crunchy, and not too sticky. There was a little broccoli, though I would have liked to have had more. The rice was well-cooked and peppered with peas and carrots. My only real complaint is that the egg roll had a little bit of weird pink pork in it…which always freaks me out a little bit. The pink color just comes from the salt used to cure it, but the neon hue is just a little unnerving. Still, the egg rolls were delicious.

Philip’s chicken with cashew nuts was far more vegetable-laden than my sesame chicken, with lots of carrots, celery, water chestnuts, mushrooms, and cashews. Rather than being breaded like the sesame chicken, the cashew chicken was simply velveted (coated in cornstarch before being sautéed) and had a light, slightly sweet sauce. The portions were decent sized but not overly gigantic…we both ate most but not all of our meals and didn’t feel stuffed after.

For the price and the friendly service (I saw some reviewers on Urbanspoon refer to the service as rude and state that they’ll walk away if you aren’t ready, but they’re BUSY. While we decided on our order, the lady taking the orders walked away to work in the kitchen, then she came back after a couple of minutes to take our order), I think that Hong Kong Chinese is a great option. It was definitely the best Chinese food that I’ve had around Chattanooga in quite a while, and it didn’t leave me with an MSG aftertaste or a telltale MSG bloat after (too much MSG makes me feel puffy and swollen). Obviously, the location will prevent us from going on those work nights when I just don’t feel like cooking…

…but when I have a Chinese craving that I can’t shake Hong Kong Chinese will be my go-to. Judging from the number of people picking up takeout, it seems that quite a few people in the area agree.

Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant is located at 8644 East Brainerd Road, Suite C2, Chattanooga, TN 37421. They are open daily, 11 a.m.-10 p.m., except Sundays when they are open 12 p.m.-9:30 p.m. You can call them at 423-899-4878.

Also in this area: Bones Smokehouse

Panda Chinese Restaurant-November 29, 2012

December 2, 2012

So, I had to get my local restaurant dining out of the way early this week. Last night was the Ladies’ Christmas Dinner at my church so I knew there was no way I was eating out for lunch without having to do the rubber band trick on my pants by the end of the night (it works for non-pregnant ladies too, my friends). I decorated a table, ate some delicious brisket, and may or may not have donned a hood that made me look like a sheep, black paint on my nose, and a graduation robe as a judge in the Sheeple’s Court. But I digress.

My table….

Since it was a weeknight, there was no way we were going out of Hixson for dinner. That’s just not how we do it. We are homebodies for real, guys. We flipped through our ever-shortening list of Hixson/Soddy-Daisy choices till we landed on Panda Chinese Restaurant, across from Abba’s House and next to Sick Boys Ink (our tattoo shop of choice. I’m not kidding.). It’s not the national chain Panda Express, by the way. Panda Chinese has been around forever with its Chinese food & frozen yogurt sign, but somehow neither of us has never eaten there.

We were greeted by a very friendly lady who seated us, gave us menus, and took our drink orders. She was minding the entire dining room as well as the cash register and balanced it all pretty well. There were several other tables occupied but I definitely wouldn’t call it “crowded”. Several people came in to pick up to-go orders while we were there as well. Anyway…she delivered our waters along with plates, silverware, folded napkins, and a bowl of fried wonton strips. Help me. I could eat nothing but fried wonton strips as my meal, so I was happy. What is it about this crispy little puffy fried strips of dough? They aren’t salty or sweet or anything like that but man are they delish. Love.

As is the protocol in Chinese restaurants, the menu was gigantic. We briefly considered one of the “family meals” which included soup, eggrolls, rice (fried or steamed), and two entrees to be shared, but the entree selections were limited (sweet & sour pork and garlic chicken OR beef & broccoli and shrimp with lobster sauce) and didn’t necessarily include the things that we would have chosen to order otherwise. Instead we ordered off the menu, taking no less than ten minutes to decide what to order. We skipped the soup but each ordered an eggroll, holding our breath until I cut mine in half to see if it contained pink meat, which frightens me. Beyond belief. No pink meat, just normal-colored ground pork, cabbage, and pepper fried up in an eggroll wrapper. Simple and delicious as an eggroll should be.

I decided on the cashew beef, which drew me in with the promise of mushrooms, water chestnuts, and cashews all on one plate. Sounds good to me. The meat was thinly sliced and tender, the vegetables nicely cooked. The sauce had a gravy-like consistency and didn’t taste too salty, though I will address the seasoning in a minute. The fried rice was rather plain, just some long-grain rice fried up with some egg (no carrots, peas, etc.), but tasted pretty good. It was a huge portion so I had the leftovers for lunch on Friday and really liked it better the second time around, especially since I mixed the rice into the beef mixture instead of eating it on the side.

Philip got the sweet and sour chicken since he judges Chinese restaurants on how well they do this dish. The sauce was not as thick and corn-syrupy looking as sweet and sour sauce often is, and he didn’t think it was as sweet as what is usually served in most Chinese joints. The chicken was nicely fried, the breading not as thick and doughy as you might expect, and the vegetables crisp-tender. He really liked it, although of course anything fried is rarely better the second time around.

All in all, I would say that Panda is a pretty good Thursday night Chinese experience (by the way, the total for our meal was $21.85). I’d love to try a real authentic Chinese restaurant, though, because, let’s face it, the food that we recognize at Chinese food in no way resembles what people in China actually eat, or even what the people who own/work at these restaurants cook for themselves. Perhaps I should just go in one day and ask them to cook me what they’d consider “authentic”? Anyway, back to the seasoning issue…while I didn’t think that the food tasted overly salty, I am fairly certain there was MSG in it. You can argue with me all day long that MSG has no adverse effects, and I know that there are many who believe that and that science is rather inconclusive regarding adverse effects from MSG….but I know how my body reacts and I definitely had some bloating. I liked the flavor of the food here enough to go back, for sure….but next time I’ll ask for it without MSG.

Panda Chinese Restaurant is located at 5137 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343. You can call them at 423-870-9563.

China King Hixson-February 4, 2012 (CLOSED)

February 5, 2012

Note: China King Hixson closed sometime in the later half of 2013. Somehow I totally missed this until a reader pointed it out to me! There’s now a Workout 24/7 there. Shows you how much attention I pay, since I grocery shop in the Publix plaza at least once a week!

All right, I railed against going to this place for quite some time. Call me a snob, I don’t care. I just have this “thing” about hole-in-the-wall Chinese places….I’m suspicious. I can’t help it. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised, and sometimes I’m not. There’s one very close to my house that we went to once and my eggroll had some sort of mysterious fluorescent pink meat in it. Never again.

Anyway, Philip went to a different hole-in-the-wall Chinese place in East Brainerd with a friend last week and loved it, so he wanted to try this one. One of my friends and her husband really like it and go there frequently, so I figured it was worth a shot. When we were racking our brains trying to think of something to eat on Saturday night, Philip suggested we go. So we did.

It was around 7:30 when we got there. There was one couple that was actually eating in the restaurant, and 4 or 5 people waiting for orders (2 more came in to pick up while we were there). The decoration was sparse, as you would probably expect, and they did have the required slightly creepy looking photos of different meals that are available hanging about the counter, like a menu. The menu is huge, but that’s generally pretty standard at a Chinese restaurant…..122 menu items plus “Chef’s Specialties”, “Special Combination Plates”, and lunch specials. Since we are partial to fried rice, we went for the special combination plates, which included the meat, pork fried rice, and an eggroll for $6.95. Philip got sweet and sour chicken, and I got sesame chicken. I won’t go into too much detail about what is available…it’s again pretty much the standard Chinese restaurant menu…plus you can check out the menu at the bottom of the post.

Philip took the first bite of the eggrolls….he’s a little bit braver than I am. Okay, he’s a lot braver than I am. Anyway, there was no pink mystery meat in the center of the eggrolls, just cabbage. We were in business. Since we had about 15 minutes from the time we got our food to the time we were actually eating it, it wasn’t overwhelmingly hot….just perfect. I’d be willing to be you’d burn your mouth eating one in the restaurant, though!

Interestingly, the sesame chicken smelled super-garlicky. It didn’t taste super-garlicky, though, so that was good. It was sweet, not overly sticky, and not spicy like you occasionally find (General Tso’s would be considered the spicy version of sesame chicken). I had two random pieces of broccoli, which I got a good laugh from. Philip’s sweet & sour was pretty much the average sweet & sour….not too much breading and not too greasy; that was a plus. The rice was fine, maybe not as sticky as I really like my fried rice to be. That’s the problem with making things at home…you end up liking what you make more than what you get at restaurants. I guess that’s why so many restaurants are terribly disappointing to me. Still, I didn’t have to cook this, and it’s nice to have the night off from time to time. There were not a ton of veggies in the rice…a few carrots, onions, and peas-but interestingly there was actually a fair amount of diced pork, which tasted pretty good. Can someone explain to me why the rice at some Chinese restaurants is yellow? Some, not all. I would love to know.

In the end, we had enough left over to have it for lunch today as well. Again, that’s always nice, and it makes me feel less guilty about the amount that I spend when I go to a restaurant. Of course, there were the requisite fortune cookies at the end of the meal, and our fortunes were so boring that I don’t remotely remember what mine said. I think Philip’s said something about going fishing. I was more intrigued by the one that Philip picked up off of the table where we were waiting….it said something about modifying your plans. But I digress.

Okay, in the end….China King is not the ultimate be all and end all of Chinese restaurants. It was decent food, though, and inexpensive, at least when you consider that we got two meals from it. I doubt will eat there often, but I am sure we will eat there again. Perfectly acceptable for a no-cook Saturday night.

China King is located at 5922 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343 (in the Publix complex, between El Metate and BiBa’s). You can reach them at 423-842-0666.