It is sometimes a bit of an effort to decide where to order your takeaway from. Sometimes too much choice can be a bad thing, but if you’re curious as to how to whittle it down, read on!
I was delighted when hungryhouse.co.uk got in touch to tell me about the upcoming Chinese New Year. I regularly use this ordering platform as a jumping off point; their rating system is clear and easy to follow, and they often do little features to point you in the right direction. But I must admit, s.o. and I have tried many a Chinese in Edinburgh and we always return to our local because nowhere is ever quite as good. But now we have China Star.
As there is only one way to celebrate New Year’s, I got all my flatmates gathered for a bit of a shindig. Often problematic when we eat together is the range of tastes and eating habits, a couple of vegetarians here, a couple of no fish eaters there. But ordering from China Star was no problem as they have an excellent range of delights, familiar and new, on their menu.
Banquet was an understatement dear reader, this was a veritable feast and by the time eight of us had had our fill we were rolling around the flat. As there were so many dishes, I will try and give a brief overview of the great, the good, and the so-so.
David from hungryhouse.co.uk deserves a special mention for his excellent choices. His first recommendation was the spring rolls, which I never normally order as I usually find them a bit boring, however, these spring rolls were brilliant! Perfectly crisp, plenty of flavour and texture inside. Winner.
The next recommendation was for dumplings, he suggested two options from which to choose, so of course we went for both. Firstly the China Star Special dumplings, a kind of cha siu bao, and then a few siu mai with pork and prawn filling. I’m not normally a fan of dim sum buns, but whatever was in the cha siu bao was a hit with both s.o. and myself. The siu mai were also great, and they went down a treat with all the other scavengers.
For our recommended main course, we went for the beef in black bean sauce. This divided opinion. I have eaten a lot of food, and a lot of beef in black bean, some of which was virtually inedible. However, this beef dish was quite tasty, the beef was tender, the peppers were not overly cooked, and the sauce was tasty. Other people found it quite bland, but I would say that it was delicate just like a black bean sauce should be.
Finally, I had to plump for some banana fritters. When I was living in India next to the Nepalese border, I lived off of these things. China Star’s version were also great; I do think there is only so much you can do with deep fried bananas but it is a winning combination!
So, onto our wild cards. For the vegetarians we got some noodles and beansprouts, seasonal vegetables in oyster sauce, and some Chinese mushroom and broccoli. I had a try of all of these dishes, and found them all to be quite standard but satisfactory. My favourite was the mushroom dish, although this proved to be least popular with the masses. All in all, firm side dishes, however, I think if you were veggie it might not have been exciting enough a meal.
We also went with some ‘special duck meat rolls’. Thinking they would be another take on the spring roll was a huge mistake. They were a breaded concoction which, though very tasty, was slightly odd.
You live and learn. The barbecue spare ribs, on the other hand, were first rate. Probably the best I’ve tried. They were tender, falling off the bone types, with no gooey messy sauce. Very nice.
To the remaining mains. The crispy shredded chicken proved to be my favourite dish. I thought it was brilliantly executed, and superior to similar dishes of this ilk that I have tried before. We were all much surprised by the beef curry, which was excellent. I hasten to add that ordering it in the first place was s.o.’s idea, it’s just something he has to do. But we were all very very impressed, the sauce was lovely and the beef perfectly tender. Good one China Star, you’ve converted me there. My usual choice is kung po chicken. I have had many variants of this dish, some good, others bad. Because I so venerate a great kung po, I was seriously let down by this one, and confused by the appearance of artichokes in it. Other people quite enjoyed it. Finally, we ordered a fish dish for the sake of it. Prawn with fresh ginger and spring onion was the choice, and this was delightful. Very light, simple and delicious. One to be ordered again.
All that’s left to say of the food is that the egg fried rice was solid, and we were pleasantly surprised by a few freebies thrown in: a bottle of coke and some chicken wings that went down a storm. Overall, s.o. and I were very impressed. The quality of much of the cooking was very high and the few niggles we had could probably be put down to individual taste. The rest enjoyed their meals with relatively few complaints which can only be called miraculous!
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