My Meal Cost: $11.88. Health Rating A. Yelp 3.5 stars
This has been a difficult day. On Sunday, I suffered a fall from a ladder while cleaning leaves off of the roof of Casa Clifford. I was not seriously injured, but I did manage to sprain my left calf and have cuts and scrapes on both of my legs which are irritating if not terribly painful. So to say the least, I'm moving a little slowly. I decided to attend the Monday evening Pomona City Council meeting and didn't get home until almost 11:00 pm, and then had a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning. So now I'm moving slowly, some pain, and tired, and, of course it starts raining. But it was time to go off and do my Garey Avenue blogging duty.
Next up was supposed to be Aladdin, Jr. in the Grove Center. I pulled into the parking lot, took my exterior photos and limped inside. I was greeted by a completely empty restaurant and a security guard. I told him that I was there for lunch and he said that they had not received their meat order ?????
I asked him if they were open for lunch to which he responded that yes, but that they had been remodeling the restaurant and the meat order hadn't arrived.
So much for doing this one today. So I limped out.
I knew that next up would be Jasmine's Restaurant a few doors down so I limped my way there only to find that they don't open until 4:00 pm. I guess that week will be a dinner review.
By now I've limped to several places and found that my phone battery was nearly dead so I had to be careful so I could get my photos.
At least it was open and fairly active for a Tuesday lunchtime. This place is Chinese fast food not unlike similar places that I've already sampled on Garey. There is the menu board with photos of the various combinations and the steam trays with an array of Chinese fast food items. There are about 8-10 tables and chairs set up inside and a beverage fountain. The dining area is fairly clean but the place has an open kitchen that, while not filthy, had stacks of things lying about and the woks looked well-used.
Because of the cold and wet weather, I was drawn to a sign in the window for Wor Wonton Soup. I've had this at other Chinese restaurants and have always liked it so I opted for that. The very friendly woman behind the counter explained that they make it fresh and it would take 5 minutes. So I decided to also have the chicken egg rolls (2 pc/$2.50) as well and a fountain beverage.
Since I was dining in, they delivered the soup in a nice bowl and a regular spoon. My egg rolls, which came off the steamer table, came with a plastic fork, little cup of sweet and sour sauce, and a pre-packaged fortune cookie. The fountain had Pepsi products so I ended up with diet Pepsi.
The nice plump egg rolls looked to be over fried and ended up being really greasy. The paper bag that they came in, which I placed them on so I could take the photo, ended up being covered in oil. They were so bland that dipping them in the sweat and sour sauce created a bite that was overpowered by the sauce.
Like I said, I like Wor Wonton soup. This soup is a thin broth with beef, chicken, shrimp, wontons stuffed with seasoned ground chicken, and a variety of vegetables, usually things like bean sprouts, water chestnuts, and bok choy. While there were a few bean sprouts in this one, it was mostly carrots, broccoli, some sort of cabbage, and zucchini. Not bad substitutions, but hardly what one would expect in this dish.
The beef was gristly and tough, the chicken pieces were oddly shaped and I wasn't sure at times that they were chicken, but that just could have been my declining mood. The broth was very salty but also had a lot of pepper which tended to burn at the back of the throat. The wontons were the one thing that shined here, nice dumplings stuffed with a flavorful filling.
All-in-all not an especially good meal. Perhaps I should have had my regular Chinese fast food option of rice, chow mien, orange chicken combo. It did get 3.5 stars on Yelp and some of the reviewers really liked it, but my experience was not very good.
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