Four Seasons Chinese has the dish I crave

I've found I eat more vegetables, and enjoy them, at Chinese restaurants.  Sure it's Americanized and not really "Chinese" but who cares about that as long as I eat more veggies!  Can I get a what what on that?  In fact I've actually been known to order vegetarian dishes at Chinese restaurants when I'm having a meatless day.  In fact I've cut meat out of one meal everyday for over a year now.  How's that for being healthy?  Now let's talk about Four Seasons Chinese, a little place right next door to It's Italian at the corner of  Bratton Lane and Merrittown Drive.

Four Seasons Chinese has to be one of the most inviting and pleasant restaurants in town.  At least for the places the Grumpy Fat Man goes.  They had more take out business than dine in so we were seated immediately and presented with a nice sized menu of dishes.  They have all the dishes you would expect for a Chinese place, including duck, but one dish jumped out at me.  Four Seasons Delight.  I've always loved that dish.  Well, the version I grew up on was called Triple Fragrance and #23 depending on where I was dining but this was the same dish.  They even added an extra protein, scallops, to make it even better.  This dish is probably an example of all the things wrong with America, it has beef, chicken, pork, shrimp and scallops in a medley of vegetables all covered in a nice spicy brown sauce.  I like the extra heat from the dish, the different flavors from each meat and then the crunch of the vegetables.  They all come together and each bite is just a bit different from the last all the way through the meal.  I just never get bored with this dish.  That must be why I like it.  Have you ever been eating a nice big well cooked steak and halfway through you just get tired of it?  Seems crazy but that happens to me more often than I'd like.  Not with the Four Seasons Delight.

Steph ordered her Chinese food staple, Sesame Chicken.  At first glance I was worried due to the color of the sauce but she really loved it.  The thing that stood out when I tried a bite was the coating on the chicken was nice and crunchy even near the end of the meal.  And it tasted more like Southern fried chicken coating than that panko crusted chicken we're used to.  I thought it was a nice touch.  The sauce had a nice sweet flavor to it though it wasn't the most rich sauce we've seen.  It did go well with the chicken and I'll say it was unique to the restaurant so I doubt you'll find that exact flavor with that exact frying technique anywhere else in town.  It's always nice to find a place that can differentiate themselves from the herd.

As I mentioned before the staff is warm and inviting.  They kept our glasses of tea filled and asked if we would like some extra rice or if we needed anything else so the service is excellent.  By the time we left I felt like we had made friends with the nicest family on the block.  That's just not something you can fake.

Have a good evening.

You can read Steph's review of Four Seasons Chinese here. And she has pictures too!