BY
AMY JINKNER-LLOYD
Every
Chinese restaurant does take-out. Chinese food is, in fact, synonymous
with take-out. The traditional take-out carton, that cute little wedge-shaped
paper design with its flip-up wire handle, has so insinuated itself
into our lives that its shape turns up in everything from lamp bases
to homecoming floats. (My niece's high school class did "Take Out
the Tigers" last month.)
Despite
the fact that nearly every restaurant is equipped for take-out these
days, I still think "Chinese" when I think take-out. If you, like me,
have been looking for a no fuss, no muss, no bother take-out restaurant,
then Jade Dragon Carryout could be the place for you.
Jade
Dragon Carryout is all take-out, all the time. There are three
cheerful red booths in the tiny storefront shop, but they are for waiting
patrons. Not that there's a long wait involved. Chinese food is the
original fast food. Thanks to centuries-old wok cookery tradition, which
is necessitated by a scarcity of fuel for China's enormous population,
all the ingredients for a Chinese dish are chopped, sliced and diced
before cooking.
Further,
slicing on the diagonal exposes more of the food's surface to heat,
allowing for even quicker, more uniform cooking while making the food
decorative at the same time. This means that there is barely time to
realize, before your food is ready to go, that the lower half of the
walls at Jade Dragon Carryout are painted Pepto Bismol pink.
About
the only time Jade Dragon Carryout is closed is Sunday morning. And
nothing on the menu approaches even the moderate category, let alone
the expensive designation. Nevertheless, if you really, really
want to save money, you should know about the $3.79 daily lunch specials:
Monday
-- moo goo gai pan and pepper steak; Tuesday -- garlic chicken and Jade
Dragon beef; Wednesday -- sweet and sour chicken and beef with mixed
vegetables; Thursday -- Shanghai fried chicken and beef broccoli; Friday
-- spicy kung pao chicken and hot braised wings; Saturday -- Ta-Chien
chicken and spicy Szechuan beef.
To
say that the menu here is large is understating it. And it is arranged
in a way I've never seen before: by the sauce. There's white sauce,
brown sauce, curry sauce, house brown sauce, sweet and sour sauce, spicy
garlic sauce, honey glazed sauce, spicy Szechuan sauce, spicy Kang Pang
sauce, sweet bean sauce, black bean sauce and -- get this -- tasty tomato
sauce. Tomato sauce? No kidding. The only problem I have with any of
these is that Jade Dragon Carryout puts too much sauce on everything.
And some of them can be a little salty. But generally, they're all good.
Still,
my favorite things to get are the simplest things, the won ton soup
and the hot and sour soup. At lunchtime (that is to say, until 4 p.m.),
you can get a healthy portion of soup for a mere 99 cents. The won ton
broth is strong, with a hit of ginger. The hot and sour soup leans slightly
to the sour side, but very tastily. The chillier the days get, the more
I crave them both.
Jade Dragon Carryout, 4601 Satellite Blvd. at Hopkins Mill Road
(just south of Harry's Farmer's Market), Duluth. 770-409-0003. Fax 770-446-0909.
Open every day. Lunch: Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday, noon-4
p.m. Dinner: Monday-Thursday, 4-10 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 4-11 p.m.;
Sunday, 3:30-10 p.m. Inexpensive. Average price of entrée, $8.
Credit cards. Dress: anything. Ambiance: none. Wheelchair accessible.
