Ming's

Ming's, at 1038 S. Clinton in Southwedge, has been consistently ranked as some of the best Chinese in town. So the other day, when the weather started to turn cooler and we were both feeling worn down and fluish to make something and too sweaty from working out to eat anywhere nice (like Chen Garden), we decided to try out a new place for some old familiar comfort food.

I ordered the General Tso's, the Boy got Bourbon Chicken. We each got fried rice and we also split a large Egg Drop soup. Once we'd ordered in the teensy restaurant, I decided it was best to air ourselves out outside rather than torture the other diners unfortunate enough to share our post-workout space. After about 15 minutes, our food was ready. And unfortunately, during that 15 minutes we did watch a lot of it being prepared -- which included at least 5 minutes of The Boy's Bourbon Chicken sitting on the very side of the cooking space while Larry, one of the cooks, cleaned out a wok, splashing water and whatever cleaning product ponderously close to the Boy's food. We'll just assume with such an open kitchen, free for all to inspect, that Larry really knows what he's doing and the Boy's plate was hygenically sound. He's still alive at any rate.

My General Tso's was a little goopy, with maybe not enough sauce on some parts (to remind you of the huge amount of breading that's involved) and then of course, tons at the bottom of the container. It was a passing Chinese dish, nothing great, and unfortunately served to remind me of how unnatural some of my favorite Chinese dishes are. Of course it looks nothing like what they serve in China, and it also looks nothing like anything that came out of a farm or the natural world (except the sliced bell pepper which tasted pretty fresh). Lots of breading, fryer oil, white sugar, and red dye.

The Boy ordered Bourbon Chicken largely because he wanted to avoid the things I just mentioned -- he didn't want something fried. The bite I tasted was just like any other mall Chinese/Japanese/Cajun outpost. Nothing remarkable, but not altogether disappointing either. Same for the fried rice, passable at best. No egg that I found, scant veggies, decent amounts of pork. Not much to remember really.

The egg drop soup couldn't hold a candle to Chen's (which always has a distinct soy sauce flavor that I've never seen anywhere else). It was too gelantious -- and being as I'm not a fan of eggs, this is a very disturbing quality. Too much of a semi-solid for me, without any depth of flavor, just a pepperiness. The Boy equated it to some kind of military-hospital-refugee camp substance used to keep people alive and to avoid malnutrition.

I'm not sure about the relationship this Ming's has with New Ming's on Monroe, but for my money, New Ming's is a much much better quality restaurant. It certainly (after the remodel) attempts to be a higher level -- with wine and beer, fancier dishes, brown rice, etc. I'm all for occasionally trips into the down and dirty, especially when it means you get something really tasty, but not in this case.