Yuma Palace & Asian Gourmet

This post by Ed (from Yuma) is here today because Kirk is jet lagging and Cathy is resting up for the holidays.

I cannot remember a time in my life before Chinese food. Of course I am not speaking of truly authentic Chinese food as found in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, or Chengdu, but of the more pedestrian Americanized versions that exist in places like Columbus Ohio, Long Beach Washington, Monterey California – or Medford Oregon, where I grew up.

My mom had a rule – she cooked six days a week, and like God, she rested on the seventh. That meant we went out to eat once a week. My dad had lived several years in Asia and truly loved rice. That meant I grew up eating a lot of “Chinese” food at Kim's Restaurant on S. Pacific Hwy at the south edge of Medford back in the 50s and 60s.

Therefore, finding edible sortof-Chinese food wherever I am living is important to me. Which is why this post focuses on two "Chinese" restaurants in Yuma. First, Yuma Palace: The last time I posted about this location, it was called Grand China, so it is still a large traditional Americanized Chinese restaurant space. This picture just shows part of the half of the restaurant where the current management seats people most days: The other restaurant is named Asian Gourmet (do not confuse it with Asian Star): When I moved to town, AG was called The Fortune Cookie. Then it became another location for Highway 95 Café. After a long slow decline, the ownership changed (though some of the old crew are still around), and the restaurant was remodeled and given a new name. Here's a shot of the new interior: I like eating out for lunch, so I love lunch specials. Asian Gourmet has 20 different ones (currently $6.55 or $7.55). Yuma Palace offers more choice – around 40 options – at $6.25 or $6.99. All of them come with rice (white, brown, or fried) and a cup of soup.

Yuma Palace offers four different soups. Egg drop: Wonton: Miso: or hot and sour: The egg drop has a good broth and plenty of egg. Although the wonton soup broth is good, the filling reminds me of hamburger more than traditional porky mystery meat. The miso is pretty standard with some miso flavor and a fair amount of tofu. The hot and sour is spicy and assertive.

At Asian Gourmet you can choose one of two with your lunch. Egg drop: or hot and sour: The egg drop is a particular favorite of mine with a rich broth and some vegetables along with the egg. Compared to Yuma Palace, the hot and sour is less strongly flavored, but has more complexity.

It's interesting to compare lunch specials from the two restaurants. Here is mix veg shrimp from Asian Gourmet: And rainbow shrimp from Yuma Palace: While the shrimp taste fresh and well-prepared at both places and the range of vegetables is similar, the portion size is larger at Yuma Palace. Of course, at Asian Gourmet, the specials come with a fried wonton and eggroll.

Here is the orange chicken from Asian Gourmet: And from Yuma Palace: There are some similarities. In both cases, the chicken was fried well. The differences, however, are more striking. At AG the chicken pieces are more uniformly sized and come with several steamed pieces of broccoli. I also loved the dice of fresh onion and bell pepper – extra texture and color. Again, the portion size at YP is larger, but the chicken pieces are more heavily breaded and the single broccoli floret looks very lonely on the plate. The sauce at YP, on the other hand, is much more strongly flavored with bits of orange peel and charred dried chili throughout.

Since YP offers more choices, I have more pictures of their specials. When I'm feeling like a vegetable, I can have garlic  sauce on either eggplant: or string beans: While the Thai curry chicken doesn't really remind me of an authentic Thai curry, it is nicely crunchy, very spicy, and curry flavored: Even though I don't quite understand having rice alongside a noodle dish, YP offers some noodly specials. Here’s lo mein with pork: A little greasy for my taste, but I happily ate it all.

The phad thai special: Okay, but not real good.

Noodles, on the other hand, are a specialty at Asian Gourmet. I think their phad thai is the best in town with pretty much the right taste and a pleasant complexity of flavors and textures: The house combo lo mein is pretty standard but also pretty good: Chow Kueh Teoh, a Malaysian seafood noodle dish, is simple but very tasty. The egg, squid, shrimp, and mussels come together nicely: Noodle soups are also featured on the menu at AG. Here is the roast pork with wonton noodles soup: I like the broth, and the wontons and vegetables are fine. Sadly the char siu slices are dry and chewy, but this filling bowl of soup is only $.26 more than a lunch special.

The seafood tom yam noodle soup is very tasty and very spicy: To my gringo palate, this tastes like authentic tom yum soup broth with distinct chile hot and lemon grass sour flavors, a lot of noodles, and some seafood and veggies.

The coconut curry noodle soup has a lightly spicy, rich and mellow curry broth: Along with the pieces of fried tofu, chicken chunks, shrimp, and some veggies hide amidst the spaghetti like noodles.

One can also have the a similar Curry flavored sauce (or teriyaki) on a bowl of noodles (or rice) either with just mixed vegetables – as in this picture – or with barbecued pork, jumbo shrimp, or teriyaki chicken: Actually cheaper than a lunch special.

At current prices, all of the noodles I've pictured are well under $10 – that’s a good deal to me. For just a few additional shekels, you can get this beautiful “Julianne Pan-Fried Noodle": The crunchy golden nest holds a nice combination of beef, chicken, shrimp, and assorted vegetables in a mild sauce. As well prepared as the somewhat similar dish at China Max.

Yuma Palace, on the other hand, also has some real strengths. It has a liquor license, so you can get basic beer, wine, or cocktails. It has enough room for sizable group of people. It also has a lot of choices and a wider range of "Chinese" dishes. While the egg rolls have never impressed, other appetizers, like the sesame pork ribs, are pretty tasty: The sauce was a bit sweet and a touch too syrupy, but we ate every piece.

They have standards items like mushu, or shrimp in lobster sauce, or this double cooked pork: Tina and I also enjoy the black bean shrimp:and the Hunan chicken: YP also features some sauces unusual in Yuma. Here is shrimp in sacha sauce: and cumin sauce with beef: Yeah, I wish it were cumin sauce with lamb, but still a tasty dish.

Also notice the variations of veggies in each of these YP entrees.

Along with standard fried rices, they offer a pineapple and seafood version:   or this house special:  Bear in mind, however, that Yuma Palace launches a few duds. Avoid the homestyle bean curd with its dense chewy tofu triangles: and the crispy sesame tofu was god-awful – not crispy, not flavorful, just cloyingly sweet. Similarly, the Japanese offerings are (at best) hit or miss. Here's a Bento box: The picture largely speaks for itself . Still way better than Asian Star.

The sushi and sashimi lunch special looks okay, and would probably be fine if bathed in enough wasabi/soy sauce, but . . .  (I am picky about sushi). Also a bit confusing for me putting this post together is that the online/to go menu isn't identical to the one in the restaurant. Not sure why that is.

Asian Gourmet, though having a smaller menu and mercifully no attempts at Japanese cuisine, does prepare a range of standards such as a decent twice cooked pork: a fresh tasting champagne fish with some complexity in its sweetish sauce: and a pretty boring moo goo gai pan (called mushroom chicken on the menu): My favorite entrée at AG is pattaya shrimp. This picture shows why: The plentiful shrimps have good flavor, complemented by numerous chunks of fresh pineapple, abundant slices of onions, bits of dried shrimp and whole dried chilies. The sweet tangy chili sauce brings it all together.

I am glad both of these restaurants are in Yuma. Their cuisines (and ambience) are markedly different from the simple Mexicali/Cantonese of Yummy Yummy. It is interesting to me that none of these three are typical old school ABCDE places – though they all certainly cater to Americanized Yuma tastes.

If you have read this post all the way to the end, I want to thank you for your patience and persistence.

I also want to wish every reader Happy Holidays and remind everyone that the 2015 Somerton Tamale Festival will take place on December 19 in Somerton Arizona. It’s certainly the biggest food event in Yuma County, and you won't believe the quality and variety of the tamales – muy rico!!

 

Comments

[Joan Koblas]

None of those dishes sound particularly good - except maybe a couple of the pork ones. I would guess they are all too sweet for my taste. I like Chinese dishes spicy and garlic-y with lots of interesting vegetables and a rich sauce without all the sugar that is added for American 'tastes.'

I'm glad you posted what these places have to offer in such detail. However, I will pass on them. I'll take a good, authentic Vietnamese Noodle Soup (Pho) place any and every day that I could get it.

[Ed (from Yuma)]

Joan, I understand your disdain, but the noodles at AG -at least the ones in the post - are not sweet. The shrimp veggie dishes and the cumin sauce items are not sugary at all, but you are right the restaurants do play to local tastes - spicy and sweet often. And that may explain why the Malaysian influenced places do well. And sadly, we have no pho in Yuma.

[Alan]

Ed: Nice post. For Yuma, I guess, those two Chinese-American restaurants do have variety and some pretty good dishes (as these types of restaurants go). Here in Phoenix, I suffer from the same problems -- only a few good Cantonese restaurants (I like Cantonese food the best) and lots of Chinese-American places. However, here in Phoenix, there are lots of Chinese buffet places -- cheap and not-so-good food, but passable. Any such buffets in Yuma?

[Ed (from Yuma)]

Thanks Alan – I was trying to be informative. Every year in October or November a lot of folks begin visiting Yuma, and some of them have never been here before or have never heard of these two restaurants. I like to let folks know about restaurants I like because then it is more likely that the restaurant will be there the next time I pull into its parking lot.

When I moved full-time to Yuma in 1999, most of the Chinese restaurants were what Kirk calls ABCDE (American-Born Chinese Dining Establishments) serving a bastardized semi-Cantonese cuisine. Things like tomato beef noodles (I used to call it Chinese spaghetti), moo goo gai pan, and various meins, fried rices, and sueys. Fried shrimp & bbq pork. Most of them went out of business around 8 to 12 years ago when five or six large Chinese buffets seem to take over the Chinese restaurant scene. Now, however, there are only two in town, EAT Asian (cheaper) by the old Walmart and Lin’s (fancier) across from the new mall. While I have eaten a fair amount of Chinese buffet food – a person's gotta eat something – I always feel like I am subsidizing the meals of the individuals with one plateful of barbecued spareribs, one plateful of teriyaki chicken, and one plateful of shrimp three ways sitting in front of them.

Some of my favorite things about Chinese food are the variety of vegetables, the plethora of sauces, and the fresh and quick preparations that lead to the best flavors on the plate. And in these qualities are some of the reasons why I still love Yummy Yummy, a real hole in the wall hidden in the corner of a strip mall on Avenue A. The owners are from Guangdong and learned the craft from an uncle who had a Chinese restaurant in Mexicali.

Thanks for the questions, Alan.

[Soo @ hungryones]

The lo mein looks like what I'm use to. How does it compare to China Max?

[Ed (from Yuma)]

Don't think I've had lo mein there, Soo. When I'm in San Diego I try to have things I can't get in Yuma. Fortunately (unfortunately?) that leaves me a lot of choices in SD.

[janfrederick]

Wow, how long does it take you to amass the photos for a post like this Ed?

"the hot and sour is less strongly flavored, but has more complexity"

That's odd; you'd think it'd be the other way around.

[Ed (from Yuma)]

Those are good questions, jan. All the pictures of AG have been taken since this September when it reopened after being remodeled. On the other hand, some of the pictures from YP go back two years about the time when it first opened. I was going to do a post, but then Tina and I had a very problematic meal, so I decided there was no point in writing them up. But they have tweaked the menu two or three times since then, eliminating a couple of the lousy dishes. And I kept going back for lunch specials, so when it was time to update my Chinese restaurant posts for Yuma, I began taking pictures again and paying more attention.

As for the hot and sour soup, what I meant was the version at YP was hotter, so the picante heat covered over the taste of the broth, mushrooms etc. Those other flavors show up more in the AG version.