Chinese Food Tasting General Tso's- By The Numbers

DATE: January 14, 2016
MENU ITEMS: General Tso's Chicken
House Special Fried Rice
Singapore Mae Fun

So, this is the first of a series posts I will do about the first Chinese food tasting.  The first tasting was attended by 5 tasters. We tasted food from 8 Pottstown restaurants.  The dishes we tried from each were General Tso's Chicken, Singapore Mae Fun and House Special Fried Rice. 

I picked up all of the dishes between 3 and 4 in the afternoon, but I will note which restaurants also deliver.  The prices for each restaurant were within a couple dollars of each other.  The restaurants were:

King Wok - Offers Delivery

1102 Town Square Rd

6107188808

http://www.kingwokpottstown.com/location.aspx

Hong Kong Wok - Offers Delivery

1491 E High St

6107188797

http://610-718-8797.chinesemenu.com/

Hunan Wok

1432 E High St

6109705646

Hing San - Offers Delivery

425 High St

6109705790

China Pan - Offers Delivery

6103273382

207 E High St

New Panda - Offers Delivery

1642 W. High St
610-705-8880

http://www.newpandastowe.com/

Sakura Asian Cuisine - Offers Delivery

214 Shoemaker Rd

6103276888

http://www.pottstownsakura.com/

No 1 Chinese Restaurant - Cash Only

1300 N Charlotte St

6103236765

The most friendly service I received for my pickups was from China Pan on High Street.  They also gave me 2 free egg rolls which made an excellent breakfast the day after our tasting.  An eggroll also came with my order from No. 1 Chinese Restaurant in the North End Shopping Center.  It may have been part of a combination platter of General Tso's and pork fried rice which is not what I ordered and they totally missed the Mae Fun.  They also do not take credit cards so I had to run to the Redner's to use the ATM.  It was my last stop so my patience was a little thin at that point, but I sucked it up and got cash to pay for my partial order.

Below is the review by the numbers.  Each taster was asked to rate the dishes and make comments.  If the rating had a plus or a minus I added or subtracted .25 so it reflected in the numbers.  I will compile the comments and post them soon with lots of pictures!

General Tso's Chicken						Average	Median
New China Pan	3	1	4.25	4.5	4.5	3.45	4.25
Hong Kong Wok	3	4	4.75	4	3.5	3.85	4
No. 1 Chinese Rest.	3	4	2.5	3.75	2	3.05	3
King Wok	3	3	4.5	4	3	3.5	3
New Panda	3	4	3	4.5	3	3.5	3
Sakura	3	2	4.5	4	2	3.1	3
Hung San	1	2	5	3	1	2.4	2
Hunan Wok	1	4	1	3.5	1	2.1	1

House Special Fried Rice						Average	Median
No. 1 Chinese Rest.	3	4	5	3.5		3.875	3.75
New Panda	4	3.75	3.25	2.5		3.375	3.5
Hung San	2	3.75	4	3		3.1875	3.375
Sakura	3	4	1.75	3.25		3	3.125
King Wok	3	3	1	3.5		2.625	3
Hong Kong Wok	3	4.5	1	2		2.625	2.5
New China Pan	3	4	1.25	1		2.3125	2.125
Hunan Wok	2	4	1	2		2.25	2

Singapore Mae Fun						Average	Median
New China Pan	4	3.5	2	4	4	3.5	4
Sakura	4.5	3	4	2	3.75	3.45	3.75
Hong Kong Wok	4.5	2.5	2	4	3.25	3.25	3.25
King Wok	4	3.5	3	3	3	3.3	3
New Panda	4.5	4	3	3	3	3.5	3
Hung San	4	3.75	2	3	2	2.95	3
Hunan Wok	3	3.25	3	1	3.5	2.75	3

                          

Hong Kong Wok

I ordered delivery from Hong Kong Wok.  I suppose I can admit now that I have ordered from them before.  Good thing is that they have my address/phone number combo in their system so they were able to quickly verify my address without any laborious spelling of street names.

I ordered my typical, Beef & Broccoli and an Egg Roll.  I used a card over the phone and it was easy.  Delivery arrived in 20 minutes.  The delivery guy was nice, wished me a good night and I was sure not to steal his pen.

The delivery came with two cookies, duck sauce and soy sauce packets.  I also got free white rice.  The white rice was a little drier than I would expect, but not terrible once you add it to the sauce.

The egg roll was pretty typical looking.  Nice and crunchy.  They put a little napkin in the bottom of the wax bag it was in, I assume to absorb any extra grease - good strategy.  There was very little pork in the egg roll.  Kind of disappointing.  I ate it, and I kind of enjoyed it anyway.  When you're home alone and you get solo Chinese Food delivery, fried and warm may be enough to make it enjoyable.














The Beef and Broccoli had a little higher ratio of broccoli to beef than I wanted.  The sauce was kind of sweet, but otherwise was a typical sauce like you'd expect.  I will say that I have never looked very closely at Chinese food delivery sauces, but this one was a little greasy.  If it sat for a while the grease would kind of separate and float to the top.  Not sure if this is normal.  I will order some more delivery and report back.

The beef was flat and flaccid, but exactly what you'd expect for this kind of food.  The broccoli was firm and not mushy which I love.

It was a satisfactory solo night eating out of the container the food came in.  I am curious now about all the other Chinese food establishments in Pottstown - excited to eat more.  In the meantime, like what you do.