CLOSED: Fare as good as Fong Asian Dining and Sushi’s in short supply
There are precious few Chinese restaurants around here that are nice enough to justify spending more than you would for takeout.
Fong Asian Dining & Sushi in Pleasant Grove approaches this level with its fine service, pretty presentation and sharp-looking dishes. The only thing holding it back is that it’s installed in a former ’50s-style diner, so we’re hoping a few months of good business will allow them to renovate.
Because the food is good enough to deserve it. Fong has a different sort of variety — rather than offering 1,200 chicken dishes like some Chinese restaurants, Fong offers 10, along with several beef entrees and noodle dishes. But the menu also features sushi, bento boxes and even four Thai dishes. Asia is quite a large place, after all.
We didn’t try the Thai, but the rest of those categories came out rather well. The sushi comes on a plate as long as your arm, and the slices are spread out amid a network of drizzled sauces. If we’ve seen raw fish given a fancier treatment, we don’t remember it. Our Playboy roll, $9, made with shrimp, tuna, cream cheese and avocado, tasted as good as it looked.
The bento boxes, Japanese-style combo meals, are a good value. For $6.50, you get four pieces of a California Roll, two pot stickers, a scoop of lo mein and your choice of an entree portion. If only it came with a drink, it would be unavoidable. Our teriyaki salmon was soft and had good flavor.
Fong is one of the few Asian restaurants where it’s worth ordering something with beef. Rather than using cheap, tough strings of beef, our Mongolian Beef was prepared with tender flank steak, and it made all the difference. Our server warned us the dish is spicy, but it wasn’t, at least not very.
We also tried the Honey Walnut Chicken, because it sounded different from the standard breaded-and-glazed chicken dishes. Different it was — it’s made with a sweet creamy sauce, based on mayonnaise, we guessed. The candied walnuts added a delightful crunch and flavor to the chicken, but the thick white sauce was sometimes a bit much.
The entrees at Fong are not as excessively large as at some Chinese takeout places, but we dare say the quality is higher, and for about $8 each. What’s more, Fong delivers for free in North Utah County. We’ll be back for another bento box or two.
Where: 674 N. 2000 West, Pleasant Grove
Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday, noon-10 p.m. Saturday
Prices: $3-$13
Info: (801) 701-0762