Ming's Kitchen (Takeout Service)

First time visit because of word-of-mouth. Took me two years to get there, but the point is that I did.

You see, despite what restaurant owners may decide to believe, customers really have the power if a place succeeds or fails. Owners don't want us to band together to bring them to their knees. They would prefer we remain in the dark and keep coming in the door regardless of poor service, high margins and low food quality.

(Enter the FSJ Food Critic.)

Back to the review.

Ordered takeout and smiled to myself that I could have my order delivered if I exceed the $15 requirement. Easy peezie. Family dinnertime is always more than $15 and what a great tactic to encourage customers to come often. It's tricky, but it works. You think "Hey, I could get Ming's for only $15 bucks and I don't have to leave the house." And you always end up ordering more.

It's called a hook. And it's a good one.

Phone girl could have been a little more in tune with the food. It's called product knowledge. Say it with me: PRAH DUCKT NAHLLLEGE. I literally heard every ingredient twice concerning the egg roll. Once from cook person and another from phone girl. Quite unprofessional.

Let's talk food. Hunger was in the air. I ordered the SS Chicken Balls, Beef & Broccoli and Mushroom Foo Yong. I'll be honest, I was expecting those cutesy, classic Chinese takeout containers with the little metal handles. Instead, just a random assortment of metal, styrofoam and cardboard. Weird. Where were the chopsticks? I know they're a little strange to use at first, but it is definitely part of the experience.

First tastes of all respective dishes were positive. Perhaps being very hungry skewed my perception-because then I started seeing flaws.

Pretty scanty portions for the price. I was expecting at least 20 lbs of food for my $29. I mean, really, I know how much the typical Asian ingredient cost the local consumer.

The beef was pretty much MIA in the broccoli ensemble. I had to search for it and the flavour. Somewhat bland.

Mushroom Foo Yong is the Asian version of the omelette only loaded with bean sprouts and other goodies and slopped with a gravy mixture. Kind of tasty. Kind of earthy. MFY did not disappoint. Keeper.

Chicken balls (couldn't they have picked another name that didn't jive with current slang??) were actually a little too greasy and dry. I'm not sure what happened here but the box was soaked through and some morsels were just too hard to bite through. Should have opted for a different chicken dish. The complementing sauce was nice. Perhaps a layer of white paper in between the chicken and cardboard box to stifle the grease stains. It would look much better. Plus, I'm not sure if the hamburger and fries cartoons lend anything positive to experience.


GRADE: C- Because I seriously don't know if Ming's would come to mind the next time I want Chinese takeout.