On a stretch of Pico right in the middle of Jew Central, there happens to be a crazy amount of Chinese restaurants. I know my people love Chinese food on Christmas, but the fact that these places are able to stay in business beyond that holiday must surely mean they have good food. To test out this theory, we headed to Twin Dragon one morning to see what they could offer. Twin Dragon claims to have Shanghainese food, so I was especially interested in seeing how it could hold up to the Chinese food I know the best.

When I was living in the land of Shanghai, my favorite food was Kung Pao Chicken. I know this sounds about as American as possible, but I swear it is a real dish there and it is damn good. So when I saw Kung Pao Chicken on the menu ($9.50), I opted to give that dish a go.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though I made the wrong decision. The Kung Pao was just not what I hoped it would be. I know I am spoiled, but the sauce on the chicken was just pretty flavorless and the chicken itself was kind of slimy. Next time I think I’ll stop at another one of the Chinese restaurants on that crazy stretch of Pico.

If you’ve ever been to Vegas, you’ve probably heard of a nightclub called Tao in the Venetian. But did you know there was also a restaurant called Tao? No? Well neither did I, but when I went to Vegas, my buddy had an elaborate plan of attack one night. First, he found out that the restaurant existed. Next, he found out that you could get into the club for free if you eat at the restaurant. Lastly, he made us a reservation for the place at 9:45 for some pre-club eating. Not much of a clubber, I just hoped the food would be good enough to enjoy without that extra clubbing incentive.

Arriving right on time, we were asked to take a seat in the lounge to wait for our table. Thinking this would only take a couple minutes, we obediently took a seat. Then we waited. And waited. And finally, after 25 minutes of sitting around waiting for our reservation, we were actually seated. So far no good. We were taken to a table upstairs and at that point I realized that the restaurant was pretty huge and also had a pretty cool interior design, including a colossal Buddha that could rival the Daibutsu of Todaiji, sitting in a fountain.

Soon after being seated, we were greeted by a friendly and very helpful waiter. He helped us around the menu and we decided to start the meal off with their Crispy Lobster and Shrimp Dumplings ($16). Then, for my main course I chose their Kung Pao Chicken ($26). I wasn’t expecting it to be authentic, but I figured a mainstream place like this could at least make it well and still leave me room for beer afterward. But while ordering, I was so hungry, I completely forgot to ask about any vegetables. It would prove to be a mistake.

The dumplings ended up tasting pretty good. I’m not sure they were worth the full 16 bucks, but since they had lobster I was willing to give Tao the benefit of the doubt. Then came my main course. As usual, my lack of asking about vegetables led to a veggie-laden dish. Sprinkled throughout were onions and peppers. Luckily for Tao, they were cut so huge, it was pretty easy navigating myself around them while eating. The real part of my meal wasn’t too shabby either. The chicken was juicy and their “Kung Pao” sauce, although tasting nothing like real Kung Pao, at least had some good flavoring. The peanuts seemed like kind of an afterthought and had definitely not been mixed in while the meat was cooking. Instead, they were just sort of tossed on to make the food prettier after all the cooking was done.

So was it worth the 26 bucks? Dear God no. It wasn’t bad by any means, but I also could have paid 7 bucks for the same food at the Chinese take-out place around the corner. Yet, in this case I was not simply paying for the food. Instead, I was paying for ambiance and a free trip to the Tao nightclub (where I stayed for about 12 minutes before heading to the Black Jack tables). So in this regard, I could have had a lot worse food and a much worse experience. Ultimately, Tao is a good idea if you really want to hit up their club. Otherwise, you can definitely find better food (and wait time) in Vegas.

After what feels like years of hearing about the deliciousness that dwells within Mao’s Kitchen in Venice, I finally found myself an opportunity to try the place out. A big perk of the place was that it was BYO, so I grabbed a sixer of tasty beer and brought it along to see if Mao’s could really be good Chinese food. Before delving into the meal itself, let’s take a moment to consider the name of Mao’s Kitchen. Honestly, I’m not so sure I would want to eat whatever Mao would have served. Most likely it would have involved mass atrocities and a side of untimely death. Cultural faux pas aside, I was still drawn in by their reputation for culinary goodness.

The menu wasn’t entirely inspirational, but did include names like Mao’s Hometown (“Made just like Mao’s mama’s in Hunan Province!”) and Long March Camp Fry, but none of these mattered to me if they couldn’t make a tasty Kung Pao Chicken. So as usual, I took a look at my favorite dish, but found Mao’s Kung Pao ($10) to be a lot different from what I’m used to. This one came with onion, green onion, bell pepper, carrots and finally peanuts. That was a whole lot of vegetables to order without, so at first I decided to be a nice guy to the waitress and only order without the two onions and bell peppers. After realizing where I was going, though, the waitress asked if I wanted to go veggie free. I replied that yes, I do have the appetite of a 12-year old and would simply like chicken, peanuts and sauce. Apparently her brother (who may happen to be 12 years old) ate the same way, so this wasn’t too nuts for her.

Not too long after the order, the meal arrived. What was this? A plate full of carrots? Surely she had realized carrots were a vegetable, but maybe the mistake had come from the kitchen or elsewhere. Either way, this made me an unhappy unvegan. Sure, throw a few carrots in with my meal and you might get marked down a notch, but when I can hardly find the chicken buried under a pile of carrots, then we have a problem. Even without carrots, though, the meal would still have left me wanting more. Although the chicken was nice and tender, the sauce tasted really generic and had no kick to it. It was almost like a thickened soy sauce and very un-Kung Pao. And on top of that, peanuts (the cornerstone of Kung Pao), were dashed few and far between.

It all added up to a most disappointing meal and restaurant I won’t be returning to. Sorry Mao, but your Kung Pao didn’t take that great leap forward.

For a little dinner break on the way back from Arizona, we stopped in Rancho Mirage to hit up the grandparents for a meal. They thought Chinese food sounded good, so we headed to Lotus Chinese Restaurant to see what they had to offer. The place was pretty full when we arrived, so I assumed it must be pretty good despite being in the middle of a desert. We grabbed our seats and got a look at the menu, which was pretty typical American Chinese fare.

After a short perusal, I decided to get the kung pao chicken. This is definitely an unvegan favorite that rarely seems to have vegetables. This one was a little unique, having water chestnuts in it, which I’ve always thought were awesome (despite not actually being a nut).

Unfortunately, rather than add a new dimension to this dish, these water chestnuts proved to be the undoing of my dinner. Hot damn there were a lot of them. So many, in fact, that they overwhelmed every other ingredient in this dish by at least 2-1. Not only that, the water chestnuts and chicken were cut so similarly it was hard to tell the difference just by looking. I found myself digging for chicken for lengthy periods of time and still coming up shorthanded. Then when I did actually find chicken, I was still disappointed because the sauce just wasn’t very good. It wasn’t very spicy and really had very little flavor aside from some saltiness.

Oh well, I’ve never really thought I could get good Chinese food in the desert and Lotus certainly has not changed my mind.

For a little Chinese lunch, I headed to Szechwan in Manhattan Beach. It had come highly recommended, so I went expecting something pretty good. When we arrived, the restaurant was only about half-full, but we were still told to wait for a table. This seemed strange, especially when were standing around for five minutes looking like fools. Nonetheless we eventually took our seats and got the chance to check out the menu. The first thing I noticed that seemed off was that the food wasn’t quite Sichuan style (Sichuan being the way Szechwan is actually supposed to be spelled). Sichuan style is usually really spicy food and different from what we usually think of as “Chinese” food. Instead, the menu looked like any other Chinese restaurant.

As if to make up for the misnomer, Szechwan offered a pretty swanky-looking “Special Luncheon.” For $7.95, the special luncheon came with rice, soup, salad and an egg roll. The short list of options for the special luckily included one of my favorite dishes, Kung Pao Chicken. I also saw happily that my lunch buddy ordered Tangerine Chicken, another relatively veggie-free meal that I could try.

I ignored the salad that was brought to me in order to concentrate on the finer things in life. The egg drop soup wasn’t bad, but as a bonus little surprise, we were brought fried shrimp to go with our egg rolls. Before even finishing these items, the main meals were brought to the table. Both looked pretty great, except that there were green onions scattered about my Kung Pao Chicken. I tried my best to avoid them as I ate, but most surely some some slipped into my mouth and tainted my digestive process. Overall I was pretty happy with the chicken, it was actually pretty Chinese in style rather than a spicy

glazed chicken that so many places try to pass off as Kung Pao. It definitely could have used some more spice, especially since the restaurant was named Szechwan. I also tested out the Tangerine Chicken and was pretty impressed. It wasn’t too different from the typical orange chicken, but it was free from vegetables and pretty good.

In all, the Special Luncheon treated me pretty well. If I’m ever in the mood again for a cheap and filling lunch, I will definitely keep Szechwan in mind.