Emperor’s Palace
This may be one of the first times (ever) that I’m hesitant about commenting on one of our adventures! Not because it was bad because it most definitely wasn’t. The thing is – it wasn’t really good either. Confused?? Here’s the scoop as plainly as I can put it. Some places that we have visited are simply just new and previously unvisited restaurants – some really good and others not so much. The rest are somewhere in between and hard to say much about. Forgetting for a moment about the food, THIS place was a true ‘adventure’ and a fun experience, but the food itself just wasn’t anything we’d go back for.
I had read an article online about the resurgence of the ‘Asia Town’ area and the opening of a brand new, very authentic Chinese restaurant (not that we would have expected anything less in “Asia Town”) so I thought this would be more of an adventure than just a visit to a new restaurant. I checked out their website and was able to view their menu which looked really interesting (everything in Chinese, but translation provided), so I was sold. I need to add at this point that the Yelp website review was very positive, but clearly stated that this place had a full bar. In fact, they do not even have a liquor license at all at this point (that includes no beer or wine), so that was somewhat disappointing.
I was excited too, at the fact that they had a pretty extensive dim sum selection that wasn’t limited to ‘lunch only’ like so many other places are. Our initial feeling when our GPS finally said, “you have arrived at your destination” was…..OMG, what have we gotten ourselves into!? By day, I’m sure that this very deserted and industrial-looking area doesn’t seem quite so scarey, but at night……..NOTHING else in sight and no sign of life at all – except the expansive front of a very ornate looking restaurant, complete with stone statues outside! Upon entering we were surprised at how large this place was – like cafeteria-big. It was ornate, but nicely so (not gaudy) and very bright and clean. Sadly though, with the exception of one party of 3; we were the ONLY ones in there. The woman did say that they are generally very crowded at lunchtime. Being the only ones in there, we were pretty sure that the service would be above-average and we weren’t disappointed. Our feeling was that our ‘server’ was also the woman that either owned or managed the place. She was very personable and helpful, though was hard at certain times to understand. We chose (actually I did the choosing) 2 different dim sum selections (a BBQ pork dumpling and some sort of shrimp in a different kind of dumpling) and told her that we’d continue to look at the menu while they started with those. The menu was huge and offered some very unique and unusual dishes (there was a whole section of “Frog” entrees – stir fried Frog, a Frog casserole, etc……hmmmmm, had to pass on that). We ended up playing it somewhat safe and ordered won ton soup and the General Tso’s chicken (mild) to share. We figured that with the dim sum and soup, it would be more than enough, and it was. Our soup came before the dim sum and we asked for some chow mein noodles but were brought some fried noodles instead (they were good). While Mr. Z didn’t really say one way or the other, I was a bit disappointed with the soup. Without the noodles, it would have been almost tasteless, and while there was an abundance of huge pieces of really good chicken in it, the wontons were so hard that they had to be cut with a knife (which we had to ask for) in order to eat them. Definitely not the best wonton soup we’ve ever had. While we were still working on the soup, our dim sum arrived. Excitement lead to major letdown as soon as I tasted the bbq pork dumpling. There was very little filling inside and what there was didn’t have much flavor and the dumpling itself, while soft and fluffy, had a very odd and unpleasant taste to it. Strike two. We had high hopes for the other dim sum selection, but unfortunately we liked it even less. The outside was a different sort of dumpling – more like a noodle – that was literally impossible to cut or even chew and had an odd slimy texture to it. The filling consisted of some nicely done and tasty (but small) shrimp and ‘something else’. Strike three! Ok, so much for the dim sum! Finally our entrée arrived and at this point we were a little nervous. It LOOKED good and was a very generous portion (a lot for even for 2 people), but the test would be was it prepared “mild” as we had requested and was the chicken “white meat” (also as we requested) and tender. Finally, success! It was delicious! Unlike some preparations of General Tso’s chicken, this contained no onions or peppers, but the sauce was thick and very tasty and the chicken was crispy on the outside and very tender inside.
While we can’t say that we’d be anxious to return to Emperor’s Palace, it was a fun experience and the woman (server? / owner? / manager?) was delightful. She did tell us that the place had only been open (as Emperor’s Palace) for about 4-5 months and prior to being empty for about the past 10 years, had been a restaurant called Shanghai.
As we were just about finished and getting ready to ask for our check, she brought us a ‘complimentary’ order of “egg tartes” (which were listed under the dim sum selections, but didn’t sound like anything we’d be interested in). They were actually very light and tasty mini pie crusts with an egg custard-like filling. Very good!
Emperor’s Palace is located at:
2136 Rockwell Ave.
Cleveland,OH44114
(216) 861-9999
http://emperorspalacecle.webs.com/