Mai Dragon Brings A New Dim Sum Option Right Across The Line In Hanover

Dim sum at Mai Dragon in Hanover

New dim sum has come to the area and gotten a rave from friend of the blog Min.

Mai Dragon runs a pan-Asian menu in Hanover, and their website suggests that they do dim sum every day from lunchtime until 5 pm.  They roll trolleys through the restaurant on weekends and make it to-order during the week.

As far as I know, Asian Court in Ellicott City is the only dim sum option in Howard County.  We have often enjoyed it -- although leisurely brunches of exotic foods aren't exactly Lil' Chow's favorite activities.

So for now, I'll have to count on Min's review and try to plan a trip:

We caught up with the owners Meiling and her husband on Saturday and chatted for a while as I haven't seen them since she left Red Pearl. We also see some friendly faces in the waitstaff that we recognized from the original Asian Court.

Food is great! The aroma of dried shitake mushrooms in the siu-mais and shreds of dried scallops in the sticky rice chicken in lotus leaves (nuo-mi ji) are exciting indicators of decent dim sum. (Well, the surrounding Cantonese-speaking patrons is another.)  The multi-layered black sesame cake is a must-try. 

DH is very happy we finally have an establishment so good and so close to home that can be on par with the Philly dim sum scene.

Meiling said the dim sum chef studied under a very renowned chef in Hong Kong.  Also on chefs (Cantonese cousins) previously at other famous eateries in NoVA and Rockville. There will be a renovation coming  up soon. The restaurant will be able to host banquets up to about 26 tables afterwards.

Last but not least, just in case you're a fan of durian, the king of fruits, I asked for durian pastry (liu-lian su, melt-in-your-mouth durian wrapped in puff pastry sheets) and was told it'll be available next weekend.

Min wrote during my hiatus, so I assume the durian pastry is available now.  Mai Dragon is the name of the restaurant.  Some places on-line, it looks like there is a Mai Dim Sum with a different address.  It's all the same place -- just a dim sum menu on top of the regular Mai Dragon menu.

I am always open to Chinese recommendations in the area.  People like all different kinds of places.  We're partial to Grace Garden, which is even a little farther into Anne Arundel in Odenton.  A nondescript decor, but amazing food.  Does anyone have new finds -- restaurants or dishes -- to recommend around the area?

Mai Dragon
2649A Annapolis Road
Hanover, MD 21076
Phone: (410) 551-9498

NEAR:  This is on Rte 175 just east of the BW Parkway.  So it's just over the line in Anne Arundel County, but close enough for us to try to annex.

Is It Worth The Trip? Emily Checks Out Great Wall, The Chinese Supermarket In Catonsville

Great Wall has Chinese duck, pork and chickens

Our options keep expanding faster than I can check them out.  Like the Great Wall Supermarket in Catonsville that opened in late 2013 -- and that I still haven't visited.

Luckily, I got an expert report from Emily of the Howard County Cook blog.  Emily is a first-generation Chinese-American who was born in Chicago and raised in Houston, home to one of the largest Chinatowns in the United States.

Emily's parents originally immigrated from Taiwan for graduate school.  She and her family -- including a husband and two kids -- moved to Maryland about five years ago.  She volunteers at local shelters, their school and church, and she has blogged about all kinds of eating and recipes, including red cooked pork belly and a yellow curry with squash and chicken.  She also wrote a great series based on the finds in her Breezy Willow CSA.

Emily and I got to talking about Great Wall, which is a Chinese-run grocery on Rte 40 just inside Rte 695.  I'm a huge fan of the Korean-run supermarkets like H Mart and Lotte, and they both offer Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese and other cuisines.  But I wondered what finds might make it worth driving past both to try a market aimed at a Chinese market.  Emily checked out Great Wall, giving her report and suggesting some items just like the Unmanly Chef wrote up the Caspian Market last month:

Even though I live five minutes from the Lotte close to Rte 29 and Rte 40, I usually travel to H Mart about 15 minutes away because I know where everything is.  I find the produce to be more consistent on any given day, and it’s small, which means there is a higher turn around on their produce.

I was a little worried I would find Great Wall to be too far. It really wasn’t. I drove past H Mart, past Rte 695, and there it was, just inside 695 on the left. Google told me it would take 22 minutes. Google was about right on. I realized I had been there before -- at the Asian grocery that was there previously, but apparently had closed.

Once inside, I was impressed by the variety of produce, all looking fresh. Check. The prices looked good too.  There were some really great deals, and some fair prices, comparable to the other Asian stores. I was VERY happy to find a huge stack of perfect Japanese eggplant. Not bruised, not wrinkled, perfect. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about, was that many of the leafy Chinese vegetables were pre-packaged into plastic bags. That sort of thing drives me nuts. I like to see, touch, examine, and pick my own produce, so I wasn’t a fan of that. Not all of the produce was that way, just most of the green Chinese veggies. I'm not sure why, and I hope they do away with that.

Veggie Bar At Asean Bistro's Chinese Lunch; All-You-Can-Eat Side Dishes With Your Entree

Half of the veggie bar at Asean Bistro

Check out the cool extra that comes with lunch at Jesse Wong's Asean Bistro in Columbia -- two special vegetable dishes that you can eat with any entree.

Asean Bistro is a Howard County institution, serving good Americanized Chinese food just off Rte 108.  This was our local stop when we lived near Rte 108 and Snowden River.  They deliver, and we often got large orders that fed us for days.

Kung pao, noodles and tofu

They also do lunch.  We met the RDADoc and her preschool sidekick this week, and we had a nice lunch of dumplings, noodles, tofu and kung pao chicken.  The cool extra is that Asean Bistro has to chafing dishes at the front with rotating vegetable dishes that you can serve yourself.

Zucchini in sha cha sauce and cauliflower in garlic sauce were both really good.  Tender vegetables and flavorful, but light sauces.   It's great to get  extra flavors, and it's cool to try something unusual.  We snacked on the vegetables at first, then ate them with our entrees.  Even Lil' Chow who grazed on miso soup, rice, and little bits of everything else.

I'd definitely recommend Asean Bistro if you want Chinese food.  Grace Garden in Odenton has captured our hearts, and our meetings with friends there have cut down our Chinese in Howard County.  But Asean Bistro is one of the good spots.  I'd love to hear any recommendations on dishes that people really enjoy there.

What do people recommend now for other Chinese in Howard County -- restaurants and specific dishes?  I have tons of posts about Chinese food, but my 2010 overview post must be out-of-date by now.  We really enjoy Noodles Corner in Columbia and dim sum at Asian Court in Ellicott City.  Then there is the Korean Chinese food like the black bean noodles and pork at Tian Chinese Cuisine in Ellicott City.

Asian Court's Dim Sum Brings Us Back, Makes Me Wonder What To Order On A Dinner Visit

Dim sum at Asian Court

The rolling carts at Asian Court bring around my favorite brunch in Howard County.  Now, I'm wondering what to check out at night.

With the loss of our beloved Red Pearl two years ago, Asian Court in Ellicott City is the dim sum options for Howard County.  That's not too shabby since it is probably the best dim sum option in the Baltimore region.

They do a good job, and they attract a crowd that looks like they know dim sum.  We work through dumplings, sticky rice, steamed pork buns, Chinese broccoli and another half-dozen standards.  I am still trying to figure out all the other options -- like soups, maybe congee, and the noodles dishes that I didn't see until I was full.

On our last trip, we brought my parents and filled a table with terrific items.  I love all the dumplings, especially the shrimp shu mai with sweet huge shrimp in a translucent wrapper.  I always order a vegetable plate to balance out the meat and dough.  The only disappointment were spare ribs that were just too dried and not flavorful enough.  I wish we had ordered the duck or roast pork instead.

Required dessert: Sesame balls

Can anyone suggest dishes to order off Asian Court's regular menu?

I have never eat there for dinner, but the quality of the dim sum -- and the flow of Chinese spoken by diners -- suggests that Asian Court should have something interesting on its regular menu.  Anything authentic?  Anything delicious?  I'd love any recommendations.

If you go for dim sum, don't be frightened away by a line at the entrance.  Asian Court is big, and it moves parties along.  No one studies the menu at dim sum.  They eat right away.  They turn tables.  On our last visit, the entry was packed, but we sat in 10-15 minutes.  You eat almost immediately.

Ali Baba And The 40 Donuts, A Story Of Sweets To End A Chinese Feast At Grace Garden

Grace Garden's donuts

This is what you get for being stereotypical:  Forty donuts.

There were three of us, including one Chinese speaker at Grace Garden in Odenton, and we were pretty stuffed from three entrees from the best Chinese restaurant in the area.  But we were enjoying the afternoon and finishing off our tea when our friend recommended the donuts.

We looked at the menu, and, for about $5, there was a line for "40 donuts."  That can't be right, we all agreed.  You know how Chinese restaurants have language issues.  I've seen stir-fried "prok."  I've seen "shimp."  That must be an order with four little donuts.  That would be perfect.  We just need four.

Out came 40 donuts, maybe more.  They're each the size of a donut hole from one of the national chains.  Beautifully fried, warm and crisp but not oily.  Dusted with a large-flake sugar that created sweet crunch.  These are a terrific dessert.  Probably smarter if you have four or six people to eat 40 donuts, but we hoovered most of them.  I concentrated on the section with the most sugar.

I can't recommend Grace Garden's food enough.  It's one of my best restaurants of Howard County even though it is across the border in Odenton.  It's well worth the drive our Rte 32, and now it comes with a sweet ending.

For more about Grace Garden, check out Lisbeth's post on Lisbeth Eats.  As always, she has terrific photos, and she suggests her favorite dishes at what I consider the best Chinese food near Howard County.  Read all my posts about Grace Garden to see what inspires you. 

Worth Repeating: Grace Garden Makes The Region's Best Chinese; Go Pick What You Want

Fish noodles at Grace Garden

I'll leave Howard County for great food, and the easiest drive is for Chinese food off Rte 32 in Odenton.

Grace Garden serves hands-down the best Chinese food in the area.  So good that we had our best Chinese meal in years even though we ordered in part by just pointing at the dish that just happened to be served to the only other guy in the restaurant.

Of course, our table included some great favorites.  The fish noodles are a perfect dish -- actual noodles made from a paste of firm, white fish and flavored with an incredible mix of mushrooms, green onions and slivers of pork.  The sauce provides a warm richness, but there is no oiliness or grease.

You can't go wrong at Grace Garden.  It's a one-chef operation in a forlorn part of Rte 32 just across from Fort Meade.  But the "authentic" menu has an array of amazing dishes from simple vegetable platters to complex whole poultry that need to be ordered two or three days in advance.

The bottom line is that every single dish that we have eat at Grace Garden would be on the table of the best Chinese in Howard County.  We really like places like Noodles Corner in Columbia, but Grace Garden's dishes are simultaneously more subtle and more flavorful.

Cantonese braised chicken

What was the dish that just happened to be served while we looking at the menu?  Cantonese braised chicken -- chunks of meat on the bone served with a sauce made from onions and garlic.  Like all the Grace Garden dishes, there is no gloppy sauce.  It clung to the meat, and there was just a little bit that I obsessively tried to spoon onto rice from the bottom of the bowl.

The braised chicken is an absolute winner, even for Mrs. HowChow who doesn't normally want to nibble meat off a bone.  It was a random win for us, although I later realized that it is repeated rave on the Chowhound thread that first introduced me to Grace Garden.

Seriously, read that thread or my old posts about Grace Garden.  Pick a few dishes that interest you.  Tofu pockets?  Eggplant with plum sauce?  Pork and squid stir fry?  Then just drive to Odenton.  It's a basic place -- maybe a half-dozen tables and photos on the wall that I think were provided by diners who love the restaurant.  You go for the food.

This is part of a Worth Repeating series highlighting dishes and places that you should hear about even though they aren't new.  I'm suggesting sandwiches, Cuban pork chops, ground chuck and other items that have been HowChow favorites for years.

I think Grace Garden is incredibly kid-friendly.  There is no atmosphere to the place except for the friendliness of the chef and his family.  That's a great atmosphere for kids.  No one is going to be disturbed by children at your table.

Three Cup Chicken At Noodles Corner Brings A Taste Of Taiwan To Your Chinese Dinner

With the loss of Red Pearl, Noodles Corner has turned into our local spot for Chinese food, and we loved a Taiwanese dish called "Three Cup Chicken" over the holidays.

Noodles Corner is in Columbia in the same shopping center as Mango Grove and Pub Dog.  It's a casual place with a regular Chinese restaurant menu, but it also offers a second menu of "authentic" dishes that we have absolutely loved.

"Three Cup Chicken" or sanbeiji appears to be a bedrock Taiwanese dish cooked with soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil -- thus the "three cups" that make the sauce.  We got tender chunks of chicken coated in an amber sauce lively with ginger, basil, salt and maybe lemongrass.

The chicken dish is all meat, so it pairs perfectly with the "Basil Eggplant."  That plate comes to the table in a cloud of Thai basil.  It smells delicious, and the eggplant has been perfect -- firm enough to stay together, soft enough to cut with a fork.  We actually drove to Noodles Corner for the eggplant dish.  It is worth every mile.

Do you have any restaurant-dish recommendations for other Chinese restaurants around Howard County?  We are due for a trip to Odenton for Grace Garden, which remains my #1 favorite.  I'd love any other recommendations about where you go and what you order.

New Chinese Supermarket Has Opened In Catonsville; What Does It Add To Lotte?

A new Chinese supermarket appears to have opened in Catonsville -- giving you a supplement to the Korean-run markets that already make Rte 40 a terrific place for food.

Great Wall Supermarket appears to have opened this week.  This is a chain with several locations in Virginia, and I love the Asian supermarkets that often have products that run from Iran or India through Korea and Japan.

Already, H Mart and two Lotte on Rte 40 are terrific places for everything from produce to packaged goods, fish to frozen dumplings.  The new Lotte in Catonsville has incredible Indian options.

In Virginia, the Great Wall overlapped with H Mart, but then had many Chinese ingredients and foods that weren't in the Korean-run stores.  I saw some Yelp posts that suggest the opening may have been rough, but that say the Great Wall will have roast duck and roast pork.

Hat tip to Cornelia, who posted on the HowChow Facebook page.  Please comment about what you see at Great Wall and what you recommend.  You need to drive past Lotte and H Mart if you're coming from Howard County, so I assume that our locals will go there mostly for items that aren't available at the existing places.

Great Wall Supermarket
5510 Baltimore National Pike (Rte 40)
Catonsville, MD 21207
410-788-888

NEAR:  Great Wall appears to be on Rte 40 just inside the Baltimore beltway.  From Ellicott City, it probably makes sense to drive east on Rte 40.  From southern Howard County, consider just going north on I-95 and curving around on I-695.

Happy Chuseok -- Sweet Ways To Learn New Cultures By Buying Korean Sweets Or Moon Cakes

Chinese moon cakes at Lotte

The Korean Chuseok festival runs this week, starting Wednesday and running through Friday (at least on the majority of the sources that I can find).

Chuseok is a harvest festival.  People visit their ancestral homes and enjoy good foods.  In similar fashions, there are festivals associated with this same moon -- names like the Moon Festival or Children's Festival -- that range from Vietnam through China to the Philippines.

These are all opportunities for you to eat and learn a little culture.  Groceries like Lotte are selling moon cakes and the sweet filled rice cakes called songpyeon.  The songpyeon are Korean -- dumpling-sized rice cakes filled with sweet red bean paste, sesame seeds, and other flavors.  The moon cakes are more Chinese.  They're often thin crusts around a dense, sweet filing as well.  You can't go wrong with sweets!

What I Did On Summer Vacation #1: Cuban, Pizza, Chinese & More With Good People

Pork chops at Cuba de Ayer in Burtonsville

The posting was light this summer, and I need to stoke the writing hunger to re-start this hobby blog.

So I'll start with a few posts reporting on the summer vacation.  Light posting doesn't mean light eating.  We eat out less than most readers assume, but we did very well over the summer -- both with food and with people to enjoy the meals.  Often, the company makes the meal.  These are some of the fun that we had:

Udon noodles (front)
Bok choy and mushrooms (back)

• Pork chops at Cuba de Ayer in Burtonsville.  We met friends for dinner, and I ordered a 20-year-old memory in Cuban pork chops.  Just as good as I remember from South Florida.  Thin, but juicy chops.  Slightly charred.  Deliciously meaty and served with sweet plantains and beans-and-rice.  Their Cuban sandwich is also a treasure.
• A table of Chinese at Noodles Corner in Columbia.  Family visited last month, and we started relaxed with a late dinner where everyone picked what they wanted.  Ask for the "authentic" menu.  Order anything that looks good.  Try udon noodles with seafood that comes with scallops, shrimp, crab stick and an intense pepper flavor.  Or basil eggplants -- perfectly tender while still retaining their shape.  The basil aroma filled the table even before we ate, and the brown sauce came fresh and thick, a talented contrast to my clumsy, clumpy attempts at Chinese sauces.
• An afternoon pizza at Coal Fire Pizza in Ellicott City.  Coal Fire is kid-friendly in every way.  At times, it seems run by teenagers, which means you need to expect variation in quality and service.  But you can get great pizza when the kitchen does well, and the casual setting means you can mix a good pie and a good beer with little kids or a huge group.  We ate on the patio, which is even better.  That thin-crust pizza disappeared.

Spicy pizza from Coal Fire

I hope that your summer was good.  I'll post more reports over the next week, including news about new restaurants.  Let me know in the comments about summer eating that you'd recommend for people to try.

Chopstixx Cafe in Elkridge

Mapo tofu and kway teow at Chopstixx

I need some recommendations at Chopstixx Cafe in Elkridge.

With Red Pearl gone, we're in search of new Chinese.  Noodles Corner in Columbia has caught our eye, and people talk up some pan-Asian places like East Moon in Ellicott City and Asian Palace in Columbia.

Chopstixx in Elkridge is a tiny place with real ambition.  They do a standard Chinese-American menu, but several commenters like KristenB and Stephanie T have talked up the "street food" menu with dishes like mapo tofu.

The one fact to highlight is that Chopstixx is really far from my house, so I need a rundown of the kitchen to order the best stuff.  We went a few months ago, and we hit 50-50.  The big plus was the Malaysian kway teow off the "street food" menu.  Thick noodles and white meat chicken.  At first, the sauce seemed mild with onion and small shrimp, but the spiciness creeps up on you.

The second dish was a kung pao tofu.  It was well-cooked.  Good tofu, carrots, baby corn, peanuts.  The bean paste sauce was fine, sort of spicy, but in the end not a dish to make me drive 30 minutes across the county.

You should check Chopstixx out because it is way more than your corner Chinese takeout.  Inside, it's a tiny, minimal box.  But that kway teow was exceptional, and Chopstixx comes up again and again in comments from thoughtful folks like JW who offered favorite dishes at a run of Chinese restaurants like the beef show fun (dry) and Hong Kong style wonton soup at Chopstixx.

Actually, I'm unfair about Chopstixx being minimal.  The seating is small and sparse, but they use unusual modern dishes like the upscale "fusion" spots.  They also go the extra effort on the food.  The shrimp in the kway teow were sweet and crisp.  Next time, I may try the scallops and shrimp "crazy spicy noodles" -- and, when you visit, you'll see that I'm impressed if I'm ordering scallops in this shopping center.

Note in JW's comment that he also talks up China Village at Rte 103 and Rte 104.  That's a new place to me, but JW talks up the beef chow fun (dry).  If you want to browse, check out all my posts about Chinese food.

Chopstixx Cafe
7260D Montgomery Road
Elkridge, MD 21075
410-379-5566

NEAR:  Chopstixx is just off U.S. 1 in Elkridge.  This is north of Rte 100 and almost to the Baltimore County line.

Asian Court: It's The Dim Sum We Have

Fried sesame balls for dessert

Say hello to our little friends at Asian Court in Ellicott City.

When Red Pearl closed in October, we worried about losing our dim sum outlet, but we hit up Asian Court on Christmas and pulled almost all of our favorite dumplings and treats from the passing carts.

Barbecue pork buns.  Shrimp dumplings and shrimp in rice noodle sheets.  The sesame balls that Mrs. HowChow needs for dessert.  Asian Court delivered them all, and we enjoyed a leisurely lunch with a friend, balancing the starch with a little Chinese broccoli but mostly eating dumpling after dumpling.

Steamed pork buns

It wasn't obvious that Asian Court would be so delicious, even though we had enjoyed it years ago.  New folks appear to have taken over two years ago, and restaurants change with time.

Time has been good to Asian Court.  We joined an energetic flow of people on Christmas Day, many filling large tables with 10 or 12 people and everyone picking dim sum off the circulating carts.

The dishes are routinely well-done -- the fried items crunch while the broccoli was the perfect tender-crisp, the dumplings come out fresh and hot and the shrimp are sweet.  We doubled down on the steamed shrimp dumplings because they were so good.  Nothing fancy.  Just sweet, tender and pulled off with talent.  The service was minimal, but they politely left us alone as we talked.

My one disappointment was that Asian Court didn't have the full range that Red Pearl used to offer.  I looked in vain for a duck, spare ribs, or vegetarian shu mai.  (Update: Dzoey comments below about the fry cart.  That was unusual.)  The place was so crowded that carts couldn't always get around, and I wonder if we just didn't see some of the options because they were snapped up in other parts of the room.  You should definitely grab an employee to request anything that you specifically want.

There are dim sum options just south of the county -- especially Wong Gee in Wheaton and Oriental East in Silver Spring.  Look for reviews on Yelp, or start with some of the comments on a 2011 post about Red Pearl.

Noodles Corner, Nominated For Best Chinese?

Mrs. HowChow photographs Noodles Corner

Things change.  On the down side, Red Pearl has closed in Columbia.  On the up side, Mrs. HowChow now loves to photograph her food.

A new cell phone has made the wife unembarrassed about snapping dinners in restaurants, but Red Pearl's closing has left us without a favorite place for Chinese food in Howard County.

The dim sum hole will need to be filled by Asian Court in Ellicott City.  For the rest of the menu, I'm staring the nominations with Noodles Corner in Columbia.  The bright, casual spot off Dobbin Road has a second menu with "authentic" Chinese, and we have eaten bright, fresh dishes that just feel different than most Chinese joints.

Fish in XO sauce.  Mixed seafood with crisp vegetables, shrimp, mock crab, and squid.  An eggplant cooked in a sauce that was all flavor, no grease or clump.  We tend to order three dishes with the plan to take home at least two extra meals.  The "authentic" menu is in English, so you can order with confidence -- especially if you check Yelp for advice from people like Yaka H. who go into details.

Is Noodles Corner as spectacular as Grace Garden in Odenton?  No.  That's one of my favorite places.  But it's closer, and dishes range from the zesty hot pots to a simple, earthy bok choy and mushrooms.   This looks like our takeout spot on cold winter nights.

Who else has nominations?  What Chinese kitchen do you like best?  What do you order there?

I have posted many times about Chinese food, including the Chinese food of Korea like Tian Chinese Cuisine. I even wrote a 2010 overview of Chinese restaurants.  Give me new suggestions, and I'll work through them.

Grace Garden, A Kitchen That Never Disappoints

Pork and tofu with eggplants in the bowl behind

We have gone a little restaurant crazy in the past few weeks, and it just reminds me that few kitchens can compete with Grace Garden in Odenton.

The tiny Chinese restaurant sits across from Fort Meade, and it has zero ambiance.  But it has all the great meals that you could ever want.  We ate some fancy celebration meals over the past month, but I had just as much fun exploring a bit at Grace Garden.

Of course, I started with a known dish -- fish noodles, actual ground fish formed into sweet, long noodles.  But then we stretched out with an eggplant in plum sauce and a pork with dried tofu.  The eggplant was delicious.  Vegetable cooked perfectly tender, then a sweet and spicy sauce.

But the pork was a new reason to drive all the way out Rte 32.  Crisp pork and thin-cut pressed tofu offer contrasting texture.  A light char flavor from the pork.  Bright color and taste from green onions.  Most of the dish is tofu, which has a meaty texture and a light coating of oil that adds richness without grease.

The sauces make Grace Garden my favorite Chinese restaurant.  I can saute vegetables, but I can't make the dishes where a sheen of oil coats everything in flavor without ever tasting oily.  Every dish at Grace Garden tastes unique.  From XO sauce to seasonal vegetables to braised pork, the single chef turns out variation and surprise.  Honestly, the food was as much fun as our big-ticket dinners.  It's the only place where we consciously order more than we can eat -- three dishes feed two with lunches for tomorrow.

(Update: Grace Garden is on Rte 175 in Odenton.  We drive out Rte 32 and then turn north on Rte 175.  If you're farther north, then note the first comment below that it's probably faster to drive direct on Rte 175.)

Grace Garden is a great place to bring friends for a feast.  You can't order wrong.  But you can find what you like by reading all my Grace Garden posts to make a list of dishes that sound good to you -- and follow the links to Chowhound and Yelp for more-expert advice.

Asian Court Gets Sun Review, Fibs About Its Age

Asian Court in Ellicott City got a very positive review from Richard Gorelick in the Sun this morning.

Gorelick liked almost every dish that he ate.  We need to check the place again for the regular Chinese menu after going there only for dim sum.

Gorelick needs to go back and ask the owners some questions again.  They appear to have told him that they opened Asian Court two years ago.  He mentions he hopes some word of mouth will help fill the dining room.  Of course, I posted about Asian Court in 2009 noting that City Paper had named it the best dim sum for that year and the esteemed Worthog had written it up in Chowhound in February 2008.

If I remember the talk right, the Minx noted in 2011 that Red Pearl in Columbia was staffed by folks who used to work at Asian Court.  Maybe new folks bought the restaurant two years ago -- and just didn't think that story would sound as good in the Sun.

Lotus Root At Red Pearl -- Crisp, Weird!

Lotus root at Red Pearl

The great part of vegetarian eating is that you can grab the weirdest thing on the plate and pop it in your mouth.

Lotus root comes on the authentic menu at Red Pearl in Columbia.  You can buy the roots at the Asian groceries, but the restaurant turns them into a crunchy entree.  It's crisp.  It has a light sauce.

It also looks insane.  Pale white circles with holes throughout.  They serve the sliced roots with other vegetables.  It's obvious to go with vegetarian food, but it would be a great pair with the Szechuan kung pao chicken or the spicy lamb.

Noodles Corner For Authentic Chinese

Seafood hotpot at Noodles Corner

If you want to taste talent, order the mushrooms and bok choy at Noodles Corner.

This Columbia restaurant offers all the dishes that you'd expect in an Chinese restaurant, but it also has a two-page menu of authentic dishes -- fully translated to English and mostly made with ingredients that would be common to anyone who eats chicken, seafood and vegetables.

Consider the bok choy.  Baby vegetables cooked perfectly -- leaves softened, bodies tender but crisp at every bite.  That's a kitchen skill that I can't do myself.  The mineral, fresh taste contrasts with the earthy, almost sweet, black mushrooms in the center of the plate.  It's subtle.  It's delicious.

Mushrooms & bok choy

We were turned on to Noodles Corner by comments on HowChow. Wai, Jade's Mama and others that recommended dishes that they said were authenticated Taiwanese, and we tasted them just before a 2010 post about local Chinese restaurants.

This is definitely a place that should be in the rotation for people who want interesting Chinese food.  On a recent visit, we paired seafood with the mushrooms and bok choy.  First, we had a fish in XO sauce, which was a magical mix of salt, pepper, ginger and other flavors in a light sauce.

Then we had a hot pot.  You get a small metal pot filled with seafood and tofu in a thicker, rich sauce.  The tofu holds the heat throughout the meal, so nibble carefully or let it cool a moment on your plate.

You can build your own feast with these dishes, the shredded pork appetizer, the chili wrap, and the pan-fried noodles, which are also a unique preparation in my experience.  Ask for the tea, which they serve in heavy metal pots.  And don't be shy about the authentic menu.  On our most-recent visit, the waitress was clearly tickled that we were branching out.  She chatted with us and explained a bunch of dishes before we picked.  Noodles Corner has the friendly, relaxed feel that fits into a shopping center that offers as much casual dining fun as any other single location in Columbia.

You can get really authentic at Noodles Corner.  I draw a line at organ meat, but they're delicious to many people and central to many Chinese dishes.  Noodles Corner does offer dishes with intestine, blood and other organ meats.

Noodles Corner
8865 Stanford Boulevard
Columbia, MD  21045
410-312-0088

NEAR: This is the shopping center that faces Dobbin Road south of Rte 175. You enter by turning from Dobbin onto Stanford Boulevard.  This has Pub Dog, Hanamura, Riverside Coffee and the relocated Mango Grove.

Asian Palace Fusion in Columbia

Roti canai at Asian Palace Fusion

I'm the last guy who should be writing, "We were shocked to find such an interesting restaurant in a shopping center," but I have to admit that it's the truth.

Asian Palace Fusion is a new restaurant tucked into an office building near Howard County Hospital.  It's a stretch to say "city restaurant," but it's a sleek and modern layout with a sushi bar, cascading water, and the sparkly look of neon, metallic cloths and cool lights.

It's not exactly a fusion restaurant.  They're not rethinking one cuisine in light of another.  Instead, they're creating the pan-Asian menu that seems more and more popular these days -- sushi, Chinese, and a touch of southeast Asia.  In this case, the touch seems heavily Thai.

Asian Palace played to the HowChow by offering an appetizer that we had never seen before -- roti canai, a Malaysian or Indonesian flatbread with Indian influences.  The flaky, fried bread was interesting, but the curry dipping sauce made this a must-try.  Maybe coconut?  It's a rich, strong flavor, and I wouldn't let them clear the bowl.  I poured another serving on white rice with the main courses.

Our main courses were split like the menu -- one sushi roll and one Thai stirfry.

On the Thai side, we tried the Bangkok basil with chicken.  It's a winner.  Long slices of white meat served with a strong taste of basil and tender vegetables.  Thick slices of onion, zucchini, and pepper weren't popped frozen from some food service pack.  They're fresh vegetables cooked through, but still crunchy.  A thin brown sauce brought the dish together.  I have no idea if this is authentic somewhere, but it's delicious.

On the sushi side, we went with the naruto roll.  We're fans of big multi-ingredient rolls, and Asian Palace enticed us by wrapping three kinds of fish and avocado in slices of cucumber.  It's pricey at $13 for five pieces, but it's beautiful and unique.  The cucumber is an integral part of the roll, slices thin enough to bend but thick enough to crunch.  They balanced the fish, and they gave a contrasting texture -- a crispness like tempura but fresh and light instead of fried.

In the end, Asian Palace is worth a drive even past your local Chinese joint.  Asian Palace aspires to be more than a neighborhood place, and it has the decor and the menu to be something special like Jesse Wong's Asean Bistro.  I'm eager to try some of the Thai dishes like penang or green curry.  There are also dozens of sushi rolls ranging from basics through multi-ingredient monsters.

Asian Palace is especially worth a drive for a group of people who want different foods.  A bunch of you could split sushi while the outlier enjoys a Thai dish.

Has anyone tried the lunches?  Asian Palace is just south of the hospital and Rte 175.  This is pretty convenient for people who work near the hospital or the Columbia Mall.

Asian Palace Fusion
10801 Hickory Ridge Rd 
Columbia, MD 21044
410-772-8888

NEAR:  Asian Palace is in the first floor of a commercial building at Hickory Ridge Road and Cedar Lane.  We get there by turning off Cedar Lane.  It's the same building as Mad City Coffee.

Hunan Manor Has A NEW Chinese Menu

Hunan Manor in Columbia appears to have a new menu in Chinese -- this time a page on their Web site that Kiran brought to my attention.

Two years ago, I had a great time when Wai translated Hunan Legend's Chinese menu into English.  People got a chance to try authentic dishes that the restaurant owners didn't seem to recognize would interest some slice of the non-Chinese crowd.

Hunan Manor had a Chinese menu, but they translated it.  Now Kiran found a different document on the Hunan Manor Web site.  Neither of us can read Chinese, but it looks like a menu.  There might be some cool adventures on the page.

Is this a menu?  Has anyone ordered off it?  Any recommendations?  Any help translating a line or the page?  For Hunan Taste, Wai printed the menu and then hand-wrote English translations.  She sent me a scan.  Even that simple work was invaluable.  Post comments below or email translations HowChowBlog at Gmail.

(Update:  See below that Anonymous has read the menu and says it is a new font, but no new dishes.  He or she provided a list of the dishes.)

For now, you can find the new Chinese menu on the Hunan Manor Web site.  I also imbedded a larger JPG version after the jump.

Seasonal Chives Special At Grace Garden

We go to Grace Garden in Odenton for the best Chinese food, and many of the dishes amaze us with techniques like filling tofu pockets and forming fish noodles.

But don't miss the simple tastes.  Grace Garden always has vegetable specials, and you should pay attention because they're using whatever vegetable looked best to the chief.  Last month, we had Chinese chives.  They're long, mild chives that come with with a sweet flavor and a tender bite.  There is just enough oil to transform them into something that I couldn't make -- flavorful, but not greasy.

On our last trip, we ran into one of the folks who helped turn on the local blog scene to Grace Garden several years ago.  We had the pork and tofu at her suggestion.  We will order the Taiwanese fish on our next visit and maybe the steamed fish with rice powder because she says they're great.  And we'd like you to try the "3Ts -- tripe, tongue and tendon" and tell us about it in the comments.  That's two Ts too much for me and Mrs. HowChow, although we disagree on which T seems okay.