anyway, orient is this tiny little place that is always super crowded with mostly asian P&Gers at lunch. that is how you know it is good. actually, for like a year i refused to even set foot in the place because the dead plants and outdated decor convinced me that it was a front and did not really have good food. i was missing out because this place is tasty.
as i said, they do chinese and vietnamese. my favorite things to order there are the pho (aka rice noodles in broth), the stir fried egg noodles with a variety of meats, and the pad thai (it tastes different than most pad thais). all of these items are on the back of the menu. i also really like the shrimp with chili sauce on the chinese section of the menu. my friend eric who does not eat meat loves their vegetarian options, including the hunan tofu and the szechuan broccoli. eric also loves that they have cherry coke there (apparently this is hard to find).
apparently some of my coworkers went there a couple months ago and had a bad experience... they were out of a lot of things and the food did not taste that fresh or good. but i have been going there for over a year now and have never experienced that.
one of my favorite things about this place is all the sauces. they have four different sauces in little pots (regular chili sauce, smoked chili sauce, sriracha, and hoisin sauce) and i love to mix them into my food. it ends up being super spicy but really yummy. everything on the menu is pretty cheap, i think entrees are about $6-8.
orient is open 11-8 mon-sat, so even those of you who do not work downtown should be able to make it over. i wouldn't necessarily recommend making a trip downtown just for orient, but if you are in the neighborhood it is worth stopping in.
3 comments:
I'll try the Orient, but darn if I didn't wish that it was open later.
Have you done Mama's at dinner? That's a place that isn't really trying to be authentic. It's fusion if anything. With good tempura. And who argues with good tempura? Unamerican!
:)
oh all right, i will try shanghai mama's tempura. i have gone for dinner once and lunch once, and both times was very disappointed. it just seemed like noodles or rice with soy sauce. no spices, no ginger or garlic, no veggies. just blah.
I love the pad thai from the Orient..very good and at $6.75 a deal. Be sure to get his spicy sauce which is killer. I couldn't agree more that Shanghi's sucks big time. I have tried the whole damn menu and it is all tasteless.
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