(from 2012-04)

When I first moved to DC in 1985, it was a cultural wasteland, in terms of Chinese food.  The Chinese takeout two blocks up the street was typical — stacked behind the counter were boxes of frozen (but not any more) pre-cut vegetables and bucket after bucket of sauce — both kinds of sauce, “brown” and “sweet sour.”

In the past few years, there’s been a Cultural Revolution, and we now have excellent restaurants, many of them specializing in regional cuisines.  I’ll just mention one, Hong Kong Palace, which despite its name serves really good Sichuanese food.

I don’t often order Chinese delivery, but tired of North China Cafe’s inconsistency, decided to try a new resto, Happy Family.  Urgh…..not only the worst Chinese food I’ve ever had, but some of the least appealing food of any type I’ve ever eaten.

Despite only one lonely floating mushroom and some other floating unidentified object, the hot and sour soup looked appetizing.  

Except….it didn’t have any flavor.  It wasn’t hot, it wasn’t sour.   It didn’t taste of chicken, it didn’t taste of pork….it was like eating a bowl of hot water.  One of the most tasteless things I’ve ever had.

I’m more and more convinced that as soup goes, so does the restaurant.  If a restaurant is willing to put time and effort into getting something as simple as soup right, they’ll probably get a lot of other things right too.

So let’s move on to the main courses, beef with broccoli and Hunan pork.

First of all, note that there are two entirely different versions of fried rice.  One tasted old, the other fresher….but they were both nearly tasteless.  Give me a handful of cooked rice, an egg, and a teaspoon of soy sauce, and I can cook up something better than that.

Notice all the beef in the broccoli and beef?

Me neither!

As for the Hunan pork, it was 90% chunks of uncooked cabbage, 5% slices of overcooked carrots, 5% sauce…oh, and somehow, a few slices of pork.

Maybe I have become a bit of a food snob, and certainly with the influx of great Chinese restaurants the bar is a bit higher.   But I wasn’t expecting greatness, just fresh, tasty food, which Happy Family didn’t deliver.

If you read their Yelp reviews, what comes up repeatedly is how bland the food is, and how small the portions are.

“The food here is so terrible!”

“Yes, and such small portions.”

-R