ASIAN BISTRO

Address: 31 Station Drive, Princeton Junction, NJ 08550

After a day of walking around the Princeton campus, digesting some fat sandwiches, and going to watch Premium Rush in theaters, Daniel and I decided that perhaps a lighter dinner was in order after the lunch we had. Daniel suggested going for some Asian food, so we decided to head over to Asian Bistro.

The restaurant is situated right down the street from the Princeton Junction train station, and is kind of at the end of the road coming off the nearest highway. However, Daniel told me that this place gets pretty packed once prime dinnertime hit, so we did our best to get there early.

The restaurant had two different dining options, where one could opt to sit in the full-service dining room or in the counter-service area, where you would bring the food to your own table. We sat down in the counter-service area, and started to look over the menu. Asian Bistro has a number of different Asian cuisine styles on their menu: Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean. I opted straight for the sushi, since I was looking for something light to eat still being mildly full from lunch. (I was honestly surprised that I was in the mood for sushi again, being that I had just went to a sushi buffet three days prior.)

I got their Sunset Roll (spicy tuna inside with salmon and tuna on the outside) and their Lion King Roll (crabmeat and cucumber inside with salmon, flying fish roe, and green onions on the outside). Daniel went for their Spider Roll (soft shell crab, avocado, and masago) and a bowl of ramen. When my plate came out, I was immediately struck by the presentation of the sushi (take a look at the picture above). With the maki rolls diagonally lined up on a rectangular plate, it was a really impressive sight. Better yet, there were ten pieces there instead of the eight pieces I am normally accustomed to.

Overall, I thought that the taste of the sushi was really good. Innovative combinations of flavor with their ingredients, and it was very reasonably priced at $10 per roll. The sushi rice was a tad on the dry side for my taste, but the quality of the overall package more than made up for that.

I’m curious to try out some dishes from their other Asian cuisines to see how they stack up; Daniel said that in the previous times he has gone there, the food has always been pretty good. I like the overall design of the restaurant interior as well. It certainly had a very contemporary feel to it, and the dinnerware appropriately matched that design element. I would love the chance to go back and try more of their food again in the future.

Here are my rankings for Asian Bistro:

Food: 5 / 5
I was impressed by the variety that they offered and at the quality of their food. Only tried the Japanese so far, but would like to try the others.

Atmosphere: 4.5 / 5
The interior styling of the restaurant was done very well, with everything fitting that contemporary “bistro” feeling.

Service: 4.5 / 5
The food came out really quickly, and the person who took our order at the counter was very friendly.

Price: 5 / 5
I was very satisfied with the pricing on the maki rolls. They were really delicious and the value is unbeatable with 10 pieces in a roll. The pricing on the other dishes at the restaurant also look very reasonable too.

Overall: 19 / 20 (95%)

CROWN PALACE

Address: 1283 State Route 35, Middletown, NJ 07748

Crown Palace is a Chinese restaurant that my family has been going to for years. I still remember when I was really little that I used to leave our table to go admire their tropical fish tank that they have in the middle of the restaurant. We’ve had lunches here, family banquet meals, as well as dim sum, and it’s always been very good. On Friday night, we came here after my brother’s graduation to celebrate, where we ordered up a ton of food.

A lot of Crown Palace’s Chinese dishes are Cantonese-style, and in my opinion, the ones that we have tried are done very well. That night, we ordered fried rice, walnut shrimp, a beef steak dish, fried fish, fried tofu, and noodles with chicken. I am more privy towards fried rice (and always have been growing up) so I had quite a few bowls of that myself. I found that everything was seasoned really well and had a richness to the flavors. I ate a ton of food that night, and then they brought out a plate full of ice cream. My brain was happy, but my stomach frowned at the thought of more food. Needless to say, I was still able to happily enjoy a bit of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream.

The dim sum is another thing that one should certainly try out. It is sometimes pretty crowded when they have the dim sum service on the weekends, but many of those dishes are made really nicely as well. We come to Crown Palace for dim sum on occasion as well as for lunch service sometimes during the week. I have found that the quality of the food has been consistent for the past 10+ years I’ve been coming here, so it’s definitely worth checking out.

Here are my rankings for Crown Palace:

Food: 4.5 / 5
A lot of authentic Cantonese dishes on their menu, many of them really tasty and flavorful.

Atmosphere: 4.5 / 5
The dining room is really nicely decorated, with the large glass windows offering a lot of natural light to come into the restaurant. The interior has a slightly elegant feel to it.

Service: 4 / 5
Our waiter was very polite and the servers were attentive to refill our drinks throughout the meal.

Price: 4 / 5
The dishes do range on the more expensive side, so do come with more people to split the bill. I’ve found that their lunch menu pricing is pretty reasonable though.

Overall: 17 / 20 (85%)

WEST LAKE CHINESE SEAFOOD RESTAURANT

Address: 1016 State Route 34, Matawan, NJ 07747

Today, we decided to head out to West Lake for some dim sum. For those of you unfamiliar, dim sum is a type of Chinese meal where small portions of food are ordered from carts pushed around the restaurants. These dishes can vary from spring rolls to sticky rice to Chinese pastries. It’s a really neat way to try out a lot of food and still be full by the end of the meal.

My family and I have been to West Lake multiple times, both for dim sum and dinner service, and we have always been very happy with the consistent quality of the food throughout the years. West Lake serves a plentiful number of authentic Cantonese dishes, ranging from noodles, rice, seafood, and a variety of beef, poultry, and tofu dishes.  The service has never been an issue; the staff is always very nice and friendly. The restaurant does get pretty popular sometimes, especially for dinner service or dim sum service on the weekends. Be prepared to wait a bit on occasion. That wait, however, is well worth it to have some great tasting food that will leave you stuffed by the time you head home.

Here are my rankings for West Lake:

Food: 4.5 / 5
Their menu has an array of Cantonese-style dishes, and there are quite a few that we have tried that are absolutely delicious. Their dim sum dishes are just as good too.

Atmosphere: 4 / 5
It is a nice, open dining area that has modest decorations on the walls. The back of the restaurant features a number of fish tanks that hold crabs, lobster, and other various fish. It does get a bit noisy when it’s crowded though.

Service: 4 / 5
The staff are very attentive to come by to remove empty dishes as well as fill up your tea or water, and everyone is very polite as well.

Price: 4.5 / 5
The prices for the dishes are comparable to other Chinese restaurants, but for the amount of food that you get, you really can’t go wrong.

Overall: 17 / 20 (85%)

SHANGHAI GOURMET

Address: 23 Pell Street, New York, NY 10013

Today, we took a trip out to New York City to visit my grandparents and we stopped out for lunch at Shanghai Gourmet. In past times out to the city, if we wanted to eat Shanghainese food, we would always stop at another place down the street called Joe’s Shanghai, which is always really crowded and usually has a long wait out the door, even before it opens! But after eating at Shanghai Gourmet, I think that the food might be better than at Joe’s Shanghai (an added bonus is that this place is usually not crowded at all).

We ordered a bunch of traditional Shanghai dishes today, such as xiao long bao, which is a small steamed bun that is filled with pork and a little bit of soup, sheng jian bao, which is a thicker steamed bun that is pan-fried on the bottom to crisp it up a bit, scallion pancakes, a fish soup with some cilantro in it, and then a fish dish that was fried with some seaweed-infused batter. Everything came out really fantastic and I was especially impressed with how tasty everything came out. The restaurant looked like most other places in Chinatown, where it’s just a modest storefront with some tables inside. All in all, it was a great meal where I left pretty stuffed, and I will be certainly back to eat here again in the future.

Here are my rankings for Shanghai Gourmet:

Food: 5 / 5
Shanghai Gourmet serves a lot of authentic Shanghainese dishes, and they do them really well.

Atmosphere: 4 / 5
The dining room is nothing really special, just an assortment of tables and decorations on the wall. Pretty average for a Chinatown restaurant.

Service: 4.5 / 5
The wait staff was very good about coming back and refilling our water / tea and clearing empty plates from our table.

Price: 4.5 / 5
The price of the food is pretty comparable to other Chinatown restaurants, and we got a ton of food for what we paid today.

Overall: 18 / 20 (90%)