CLAYTON — I like to go out to eat after a concert rather than before. This way, there's no pressure to find a parking spot, pick up your tickets and get to your seat in time for the start of the show.
We recently enjoyed a well-attended performance of the Clayton Community Band, resident ensemble of the newly refurbished Clayton Opera House. But try finding food within walking distance of the opera house after the show. We checked with three restaurants on Riverside Drive and all stopped serving before 8:30 p.m.
Lucky for us the new Lucky Kitchen Chinese restaurant on James Street (Route 12 opposite White's Lumber) serves until 10 p.m. during the week and 10:30 on weekends.
It opened in May at the site of a former laundromat. Socks are gone; woks are in. It's mainly a takeout place, but a dozen or so tables are available for those who care to eat in. The food is all cooked to order, rather than buffet style where you don't know how long it's been sitting around in the steam table. Or the building.
The menu? Ya seen one, ya seen 'em all. Black and white print with numbered appetizers, soups, chow mein, fried rice, pork, poultry, beef and seafood. Plus all the "chef's specialties" that you find everywhere else like Happy Family, General Tso's Chicken and Seafood Delight .
Most Chinese restaurants and Asian buffets on the East Coast are part of a "family" whose lineage is connected to Chinatown in Manhattan. Or Brooklyn. Or Bayonne. There must be warehouses somewhere down there with pallets of rice, egg rolls, fortune cookies, menus, place mats and those back-lighted plastic signs that hang behind the counters displaying appetizing pictures of moo goo gai pan and the like.
Despite menu items being nearly identical from restaurant to restaurant, they will all vary slightly depending on the kitchen and the person cooking. We enjoyed the food at Lucky Kitchen, although it was a little goofy eating out of plastic to-go soup containers with our plastic spoons and trying to pick up with plastic forks the slippery lo mein noodles served on plastic plates.
We invited some hungry musicians from the Clayton Community Band to join us, making a party of five. We ordered 10 items from the menu. They were all delivered to the table, in no particular order, hot from the kitchen.
Here's our report:
"Happy Family" ($10.50): Lobster, jumbo shrimp, crabmeat, beef, chicken and pork in brown sauce sautéed (wouldn't that be "woked?") in a brown sauce with bamboo shoots, baby corn, water chestnuts, broccoli, snow peas and straw mushrooms. Quantities were definitely not in the above order, as listed on the menu.
The director of the band took the only piece of lobster and nearly lost her conducting arm in the process. There was plenty of everything else for the rest of us, all fresh and nicely "sautéed." The brown sauce was probably oyster sauce that contains very little if any oyster and mostly salt and starch in a caramel-colored brine.
We really enjoyed Happy Family. But next time we're going to order subgum wonton, another "chef's specialty," for the sake of comparison. It's got the same exact ingredients and it's the same exact price.
Wonton egg drop soup ($1.60 a pint): A nice thick egg drop soup (flavorful chicken broth with egg swirled in) plus wontons (little dough purses filled with pork and veggies). Great taste and a great value for the price.
Hot & sour soup ($1.60 a pint): This is in red print on the menu with a red pepper icon next to it, which tells you it's gonna be spicy. It's a slightly thickened chicken and beef stock loaded with neat stuff like wood ear fungus, day lily buds, bamboo shoots and tofu. The hot comes from red peppers or white pepper; the sour from vinegar.
While I loved this one, my musician friends were a little timid. Perhaps they valued their embouchures and wanted to be able to practice their instruments the next day.
Po po platter ($9.25, serves two): I've always known it as "pu pu," but maybe po po sounds more appetizing when you say it out loud. It's a sampling of appetizers, commonly served on a revolving Lazy Susan, but in this case, on a stationary plastic plate.
Pork egg rolls were the same as you find most everywhere else. They were totally greaseless, which we appreciated, as were the vegetarian spring rolls.
Teriyaki beef on a stick was full of flavor. One can only guess how long the meat was marinated in the teriyaki, 'cause you could taste way more of that than the beef.
Crab Rangoon, deep-fried dumplings filled with cream cheese, imitation crab meat and green onions, were good hot out of the fryer. I've had them in Asian buffets where they tasted like crab in Kleenex.
Deep-fried chicken wings were dry and uninteresting. Fried shrimp were more bread than shrimp and also dry. Spare ribs were very fatty with a touch of meat
On the other hand, boneless spare ribs ($8.25) were all meat, no fat, no bones, covered with a thick, sticky, finger-lickin' good sauce. It was thick like hoisin sauce but sweet like honey and brown sugar. Excellent appetizer, and lots of it.
Shrimp toast ($3.25) was another great appetizer. It's a mulch of shrimp, water chestnuts and green onions held together with egg whites or cornstarch, pressed into a square of white bread and deep-fried. It tastes much better than it sounds, and Lucky Kitchen did a great job serving it virtually greaseless, as these little delicacies are prone to soaking up cooking grease faster than a sponge.
Pork lo mein ($3.75 a pint): I think of lo mein noodles as Chinese spaghetti. They're soft and usually coated with a brown sauce and stir-fried with pork, chicken, vegetables or shrimp, or any combination thereof. We had ours with pork, and really enjoyed it. It was a real challenge eating the noodles with a plastic fork. Bring your own fork if you choose to "eat in."
Everyone seems to love sweet and sour chicken ($4.25). Personally, I don't get it, with its overly sweet and gloppy candy-apple red sauce. Here, the pieces of chicken were tempura-battered and lightly fried, as usual, but the sauce was served on the side —a plus, since it allowed the batter to maintain its crispness.
Shrimp with lobster sauce ($9.25): This has been one of my favorite Chinese dishes since I was a little kid. It seems like the menu police would have intervened by now, but there's absolutely no lobster in lobster sauce. It's chicken broth, a little ground pork, soy, garlic and cornstarch to thicken.
Lucky Kitchen used a half-dozen unusually large shrimp (16-20s, if you understand shrimp size nomenclature), cooked till perfectly plump. The sauce was unappealingly milky-white with a few peas floating around in it for color.
It came next to pork fried rice. Mix it all together and it looked better. Tasted fine.
Finally, we enjoyed a pint of beef with broccoli ($4.50). Tender beef flowed with flavor in its dark sauce with nice and crunchy broccoli. In fact, all the veggies in various dishes were cooked absolutely perfectly.
Lots of food for five with plenty of leftovers to take home came to $59, including sodas and bottled water. That's about $12 per person, just a little more than you'd pay at an Asian buffet. The food was cooked fresh, and there was another meal leftover for the following day.
One more note about the plasticware. Spoons, forks and knives are in big plastic containers near the counter. None of the pieces are individually wrapped. We washed ours off in the bathroom before using them.
On the way out, I noticed a very grimy light switch cover, so I was careful to only touch the switch to turn the light off. And next to our table was an air intake vent for the air conditioning system. The grill was covered with a black, sticky substance. At first I thought it was dust, but it was unremovable with a napkin.
Maybe takeout is the way to go at the new Lucky Kitchen in Clayton.
You can contact Walter E. Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.
Lucky Kitchen
950 James St.
Clayton
686-4003
HOURS: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday
11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday
11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday
OUR PICKS: Boneless spare ribs, shrimp toast, wonton egg drop soup, pork lo mein, beef with broccoli, "Happy Family" (lobster, jumbo shrimp, crabmeat, beef, chicken and pork in brown sauce with bamboo shoots, baby corn, water chestnuts, broccoli, snow peas and straw mushrooms).
RATING: 3 forks
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