Grand China in Yuma

Interested in Chinese food in Yuma? Since Kirk and Cathy need some time off around the holidays, today ed (from Yuma)  is posting about a new Chinese eatery in an old location. 

Yuma Palace is now in this location; there is no buffet, but the food seems better than Yuma standard.

When I moved to Yuma full-time, about 10 years ago, the town had a lot of Chinese restaurants: Chef Lee's, China Boy, Gene's, Tai-San, Bamboo Garden, Fortune Cookie, Mandarin Palace, and Yummy Yummy.  Today, every one of these restaurants is out of business, except my favorite, Yummy Yummy, a tiny Mexicali style Cantonese place that looks seedy and generally cooks simple Cantonese food well.

What's more, a number of huge buffets featuring allegedly "Chinese" food have also come and gone: The Hong Kong Buffet, The China Buffet, and two locations of Mr. Lu's. Even the largest fanciest Chinese restaurant in town, Mandarin Palace, became a buffet: 

In 2008, with Chinese buffets collapsing left and right, Mandarin Palace decided to go back to preparing dinners off a menu, and I began taking pictures to do a post on it:
 

I was halfway through writing the post when Mandarin Palace became a full-time buffet again, and I lost interest and lost heart.

After being closed this summer, Mandarin Palace has been reincarnated with new ownership as Grand China:

It still has a full-time buffet with many of the usual suspects ($7.25 for lunch):
 
a nice selections of salads (I love asparagus salad and seaweed salad):
and some actually edible sushi rolls:
Most of the buffet items are pretty standard, but I was surprised to find a spicy hot cold baby octopus salad one lunchtime.  Pepper flakes and diced fresh chilies packed a punch.  The octopus chew contrasted well with the celery crunch:
 

Finding a take-out menu, I saw that the restaurant also cooked dishes to order, and I noticed that they served something called "Peking Duck," priced at $26.95. That sounded like the perfect thing for Tina's birthday, so I called a day in advance (as the menu advised) and showed up for dinner not sure what we were going to get.

The first thing to arrive at our table -- not counting stiff cocktails from the bar -- was an order of mixed vegetables, called Buddha's Delight on the menu ($8.50):

While not earth shattering, of course, the vegetables were well-prepared.  All were crispy tender and the light sauce stayed in the background where it belonged.

The duck showed up on a platter surrounded by shrimp chips:
It came with little pancakes, a slightly sweet and savory duck sauce, and shredded scallions and celery:

 

We chuckled as we rolled up duck and complements in our Chinese tortillas.  One taste, however, and we knew that we were not having burritos de pato.

While not exactly Peking duck, this was certainly the best roast duck I had ever eaten in Yuma -- even counting the ones that I had driven back from San Diego.  The flesh was moist and tender, and the skin was tasty if not crunchy crisp.  Good ducky flavors, not overly gamy. Tina was delighted and surprised and has mentioned several times how much she enjoyed the dinner.

But before I felt I could do a post, I wanted to see if Grand China could prepare take out well as well. I ordered two of my old favorites from Mandarin Palace, so I could have a better comparison of this place and its predecessor.

Here's the shrimp and lobster sauce:

Overall I liked the dish.  The numerous bamboo shoots pleased me, and they along with the water chestnuts provided a nice texture contrast to the softer peas and carrots. Diced Peapod accented the garden pea taste.  The shrimp were well-prepared, still somewhat moist and fresh tasting.  Not badly overcooked like so many other Chinese restaurant shrimp in Yuma. I was also impressed that the restaurant used some seafood stock in the preparation, giving the whole dish the flavor of the sea.

I also ordered Twice Cooked Pork, another favorite of mine:

Again I was pleased.  Extensive chili flakes provided good spicy heat.  I was also happy to find the dish was made with roast pork -- since it is common in Yuma to use barbecued pork in this dish. The pork came with chopped American cabbage, peapods, mushrooms, and diced red and green peppers.  I liked the mix of veggies, but they were slightly overcooked, just a bit softer than I prefer.

All in all, Grand China makes a worthy successor to Mandarin Palace.  I like the convenience of the buffet, and they can prepare good Mandarin style Chinese food for American tastes.

Now let's hope they stay in business for a while.

Grand China, 350 E. 32nd St, Yuma, AZ 85364.  928-344-2805.  Open daily 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

 

Comments

[bill]

Looks good and Peking duck server correctly with the wrap and not the steam buns.

[foodhoe]

I just love that duck dish, those shrimp chips are another guilty pleasure... haven't had shrimp in lobster sauce in years, used to be a family standby. I have to remember to look for that in the future. Happy bday Tina!

[Tina]

Thanks FH, it was a good birthday dinner.

[Chris]

Really appreciate the review. I've been looking for really good Chinese food in Yuma for a long time. I'll get back here and post after I've had the opportunity to try it myself! Thanks again!!!

[Chris]

Ok. I went ahead and ordered take out yesterday. I got the Beef & Broccoli, Orange Chicken, House Fried Rice and an order of Egg Rolls (which come in a set of 4 - they're small so that order probably equalled 2 egg rolls from some other places). The whole order came to exactly $34. I was really expecting a great meal but I was kind of disappointed. The presentation of each dish looked great so I was kind of excited BUT the dishes were, for the most part, very bland. VERY disappointing. The Beef & Broccoli was probably the best but they overdid the gluten so it was a bit "thick". But the beef was very nicely cooked, not overdone. The Orange Chicken, however, was totally tasteless. Did they forget to add the Orange, herbs, seasoning? The Fried Rice was also pretty tasteless. Surprisingly the egg rolls had some bite to them, which surprised me, and they were crunchy and I was, overall, pretty satisfied with them. I would order them again. Now, if Grand China can figure out how to cook for folks OTHER than retirees, who traditionally LIKE very bland food, they might be on to something. But as a year round resident of Yuma, and not a retiree, I don't think I'll be going back. Sorry, but I like my Chinese food to ignite my taste buds and Grand China's just didn't even come close. Again, the food LOOKED very good but just pretty much failed the taste test. Not horrible, not good. Overall I'd rate their food a C-. Wouldn't take much for them to bring that up to a solid B though. Hope they figure it out.

[Longing for glory days]

I was a frequent diner at original Mandarin Palace which really was fine dinning. It would be an over-simplification to say the buffet addition was its' undoing because there were several factors but the buffet certainly did away with the fine dinning ambiance. I was excited to see this open as Grand China with a new owner until I tasted the food (menu and buffet). The owners seem to be very hard-working and nice; it's too bad they didn't choose another type of business. BTW the dead roach in the bar was a real turn off. Can't say I'll never eat here again but if choice is mine we'll go elsewhere. I'm also hoping new owners will get a clue and restore this place (restaurant cleanliness, appearance, ambiance and food) back to its' glory days.