Little Far East II

First time there today, and it was Friday for lunch.  I was shocked to see that General Tso's Chicken wasn't available as a lunch special, as that's my 'standard' for trying out at Chinese restaurants.

So, I got the Kung Pao Chicken lunch special, which came with a spring roll and fried rice.

Upsides: Not busy at all, staff was super friendly, food seemed to come out pretty fast, somewhere around 5 minutes.

Kung Pao Chicken was pretty tasty with a lot of chicken and a lot of peanuts.  Seemed maybe a little over-salty, but not bad.

Two big scoops of fried rice, and enough chicken, this was a waist buster for $5.88 after tax.

Downsides:

Spring roll must have been prepared on the surface of the sun, because even after 5+ minutes driving away, it was a fate worse than a Hot Pocket.  However, it didn't have much inside of it besides cabbage, no meat/veggies.

Fried rice was bland and not like the fried rice I'm used to at other places.  Barely any traces of fried egg in it, and no other veggies or meat within it.  Not much flavor in it, but worked well when mixed with entree.

All that said, I'd try them again.

I tried this restaurant when I first moved to town eight years ago, and was appalled by odd taste in everything.  I coudn't put my finger on it, and maybe it was all the oil, like the other reviewer said, but it actually made me toss my cookies.  The prices were also ridiculously high.  I discovered Damascus Buffet (now Sky Kitchen) and never looked back.

When a new service tried to start up in town (and has since shut down) where you'd call them up and order food of any type available in town, they would pick it up from the restaurant and deliver it to you.  My family ordered Chinese food and were thoroughly disappointed with the results.  They had gotten it from Little Far East II rather than Damascus Buffett.

When I called the company to complain about the food, the manager said that I was the fourth person to complain that night and that he was seriously regretting getting a contract with LFE2 rather than Damascus Buffett.  Suffice to say, we didn't use them again.  As I said, the company has now gone out of business.

If you want to experiment, try this restaurant.  There's no telling what you'll get.  But if you want good, solid Chinese food at very reasonable prices, go to Sky Kitchen.

"A-OK" is about right for this place. Been there since the Weiss shopping center opened, had about a dozen different owners, occasionally employs a high schooler to deliver.

Pros: some very unusual and strong dishes, especially their takes on Double Cooked Pork (great sauce, really exceptional) and Spicy Fried Eggplant (also has an interesting and tasty sauce). Have some unusual and interesting appetizer options including Spicy Wonton (a giant wonton marinated in soy sauce and chili oil and perhaps some other things) and tender Steamed Dumplings. Soups are a weak point, but edible.

Cons: This may be a personal thing, but they cook everything in a really outrageous amount of oil. I mean, every bite is shining with oil and dripping with it. My family got stomach aches from the amount of oil in each dish. Eventually we would strain every carry-out dish we ordered when we got home, and it was STILL too oily. We even asked them to cut down on the oil, and they would either A) ignore us, but claim they had or B) steam everything and serve it without sauce or anything. Just steamed meat and vegetables. Insert ironic "yum" here.

So it's a real mixed bag. With the recent improvement at the Sky Kitchen, the Little Far East II has some serious competition. I simply stopped ordering there because I was so bothered by the amount of oil in each dish. Dining in is moderately better, but still too much for me. I switched allegiances. That said, it's still very popular and most families in Damascus seem to favor it. Try it and see what you think; but if you tried the Sky Kitchen instead, I'd understand.