Oriental Garden provides fresh take on Chinese cuisine
Cashew Chicken is served with ham fried rice and a spring roll at Oriental Garden in Salem.
The Sweet and Sour Combination is served with ham fried rice and a spring roll at Oriental Garden in Salem.
Crispy Beef is served with ham fried rice and a spring roll at Oriental Garden in Salem.
Honey Walnut Shrimp is served with ham fried rice and a spring roll at Oriental Garden in Salem.
From left: Hot and sour, wonton, and egg drop soups are served at Oriental Garden in Salem.
Fried wonton strips are served with sweet and sour sauce at Oriental Garden in Salem.
It’s always nice to find a refreshing interpretation of a classic food, and from its fresh ingredients to its polite servers, Oriental Garden in Salem offers just that.
Fresh fare is the name of the game at the Chinese restaurant, with its non-MSG, 100 percent vegetable oil cooking advertised on the front page of the menu and its orders brought out in a hurry.
My party of four visited Oriental Garden for an early dinner on a recent Saturday night, the small eatery providing a cozy escape from the warm, rainy weather outside. The restaurant wasn’t very busy at the time, so we were seated right away and had our drinks brought out to us promptly.
After perusing the menu for a few minutes, we settled on four combination meals — Cashew Chicken, Sweet and Sour Combination, Crispy Beef, and Honey Walnut Shrimp — all of which came with ham fried rice, a spring roll, and our choice of egg drop, wonton or hot and sour soup.
We also asked for the Chicken Lettuce Wrap appetizer, wanting to compare it to a similar favorite at P.F. Chang’s, but I don’t think our waiter understood, and we decided to forget about it. This was probably just as well, since our meals proved to be more than enough to eat for all of us.
Some fried wonton strips with sweet and sour sauce, presented in a cute, boat-shaped dish, were brought to our table for us to munch on while we waited for our food, and before long, the soups we had ordered — two wonton and one of each of the others — were in front of us.
The wonton soup was my favorite of the three options, with both the broth and wonton offering a good, savory flavor and the wonton providing a soft yet solid texture to contrast the warm, liquidy broth. However, we thought the hot and sour soup was a little bland with hardly any noticeable spice compared to what we’ve tried at other restaurants, and the egg drop soup had an unusual, strong corn flavor that made it taste almost burnt.
A few moments later, we got our entrées, beautifully served with a colorful blend of ingredients staring enticingly up at us against the white backdrop of four square plates.
My favorite of the four dishes was the Cashew Chicken, a delicious blend of tender chicken and crisp celery, carrots, zucchini, cashews and water chestnuts — a personal favorite for their crunchy yet juicy texture — that entered the mouth with a flavorful punch thanks to the yummy, soy sauce-based sauce. The vegetables were fresh and crunchy, as I believe is common in Chinese cuisine, and cut at an angle for a nicer effect.
I also enjoyed the Sweet and Sour Combination, which included batter-fried chicken, pork and shrimp with crisp cuts of bell pepper and sweet and sour sauce. The meat was perfectly cooked, with a tasty crunch on the outside and tender meat on the inside, and the sauce was delightfully tangy, just the way it should be.
The Crispy Beef was a new but enjoyable dish for me, with the strips of meat cooked in a light breading and paired with celery, carrots and a tangy brown sauce.
The Honey Walnut Shrimp, one of Oriental Garden’s main attractions, according to our waiter, was my least favorite of the four entrées, though still good. The batter-fried shrimp was well cooked, but it tasted a bit too fishy, and the creamy sauce’s flavor was a little too much like mayonnaise for me, when I was expecting more of a honey glaze sauce. The candied walnuts on top, however, were a delicious treat and a nice touch.
The sides were also excellent. The ham fried rice was the opposite of the greasy, flavorless versions I’ve been served at one too many Chinese restaurants, with the bits of ham taking center stage in the flavor of Oriental Garden’s dish. The spring rolls were also fresh, with the wrappers expertly cooked for a perfect crispy and soft textural blend.
All in all, the food was refreshingly delicious, and the servers were very polite throughout our visit, keeping our water glasses full and making sure we were comfortable and satisfied with our meals.
At the end of our visit, we were given fortune cookies with the check, and I found my fortune particularly fitting for the occasion: “Good health will be yours for a long time.” You are what you eat, as they say, and I’m convinced that good health can be anyone’s for a long time if they eat fresh and wholesome food like that served at Oriental Garden.
ORIENTAL GARDEN
Where: 412 N. State Road 198, Salem
Hours: Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Friday-Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Prices: Appetizers and sides $0.99-$7.95, entrées and combinations $5.75-$13.95
Info: (801) 423-9196