I never say whom I am when I walk in to a restaurant for a review until the bill is paid. That’s how I check the quality of the service and the presentation of the meals.
But it sometimes if also a challenge, because when our photographers take the photos, I often see exactly what I want to order in the photo. If I forget, though, I can’t say “May photographer was here today and he took a picture of someone with a plate of A, B, C. What was it?”
Well, that is what happened when I saw the photo of China Harbor Seafood Restaurant owner Yvonne Lee and her triple crown ($22.95) – filet mignon, chicken breast and jumbo shrimp in three different sauces. How fine can that be?
Well, my one working brain cell forgot almost instantly so I took a stab in the dark Friday night with the two dozen or more house specialties and come close. In fact, it turns out that the China Harbor Club ($20.95), which I did order, was immediately below the Triple Crown.
However, it was just as delicious in reality as the other sounded and looked.
The Club has jumbo shrimp, sea scallops, and cubes of filet mignon and snow crabmeat with fresh vegetables sautéed in spicy satay sauce. It came with fried or steamed rice, as all of the specialties do, and was more than enough for me and two other people.
I thought I was hungry but after eating four of the six chicken teriyaki sticks ($5.95) as an appetizer – which came with my own private little charcoal grill on which to make more sizzle – I found myself wading slowly through the tasty mounds of flavors. The meat was tender, the seafood succulent and the flavor robust.
But before even getting to the first portion of the menu, one can choose from the 20 or so starters, which include spring rolls ($1.50 vegetable; $1.75 roast pork; $1.95 shrimp), barbeque spare ribs ($6.25), steamed meat dumplings ($6.95), steamed green mussels ($7.95) – a New Zealand variety with plenty of meat.
It you would rather have a soup than appetizer, there if the egg drop ($1.85) and wonton ($1.95), hot and sour ($6.95) or that Marx Brothers’ favorite – duck soup for two ($7.95).
For something a little different, try the asparagus and crab soup for two ($8.95) or seaweed soup, also for two ($8.95) – seaweed, shrimp, scallops and egg white in chicken broth.
A bit of information is due here. I mentioned satay sauce earlier. This is a smooth peanut-based sauce with various spices enhancing and deepening the flavors of the foods with which it is served or cooked. Before you reach for the jelly, it is not peanut butter but a peanut base and is very delicious.
As for seaweed, it has more benefits per square inch than almost any other food Source. Growing up in Nova Scotia in the summers, the local kids ate dulse tough, chewy red seaweed — much like we ate licorice sticks.
Back to the specialties, China Harbor offers a crispy whole rockfish ($18.95), which is lightly battered, fried and served with a red-hot and spicy Szechwan sauce. If you want this 1½-pound fish, allow a half hour for its preparation, I saw this come out to one of the tables and it was truly a beautiful sight.
There is also calamari and black bean sauce ($10.95), pina-colada shrimp ($17.95) and Cantonese lobster ($27.95). If you want the traditional Peking duck ($15.95), that requires a half-hour wait but the young duckling is marinated in special spices, roasted in a special oven and served with scallions, pancakes (little wafer-thin rice cakes- and plum sauce.
Beside the numerous specialties, China Harbor offers dozens of quicker and lighter dishes, such as stir-fried asparagus with sea scallops ($14.95), beef ($10.95), roasted pork ($9.95) or a combination of shrimp, beef and chicken ($12.95)
Other stir-fried ingredients revolve around snow peas, vegetables, string beans and broccoli.
The same ingredients are combined with curry sauce, sweet and sour sauce, cashew nuts, spicy kumg-pao, Hunan, black bean or garlic.
Szechwan-style foods are prepared with bean sprouts, celery, spring onions and carrots and are served with beef ($9.95) or pork or chicken white meat (8.95either version).
The good General Tsao dishes are available with spicy sauce served over battered jumbo shrimp ($13.95), a combination of beef ($12.95), or chicken leg meat (10.95).
Other choices include dishes with orange, sesame or lobster sauces, Pepper steak ($9.95), moo-goo-pan ($8.95) – fresh snow peas, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, mushrooms and carrots sautéed in low-fat white sauce with chicken white meat, or ingredients served moo-shu- style—with five pancakes and plum sauce.
Egg foo young are egg pancakes with bean sprouts, cabbage and onions and can include baby shrimp ($11.95), beef ($9.95) or vegetables ($8.95).
Chow-mein, lo-mein and fried rice dishes round out the very extensive menu. Many dishes come hot and spicy, and special dietary needs can be handled.
China Harbor is not on the island but in the very busy shopping center immediately above it on the north bound side of Solomons Island Road. I got there just at the start of dinner hour and it did not take long for all of the tables to fill up with hungry residents and visitors.
Lee suggests bringing several friends to share the variety of dishes on the menu. I’d agree with that because I’d like to try the tea smoked duck ($15.95) – “A most famous Zhang’s river recipe”; mandarin steak cubes ($17.95) and the Szechwan catfish ($13.95), which is spicy.
It you have not sought refuge in China Harbor, it is about time you did. I can’t eat the menu’s offerings all by myself.