Remember that post where I noticed the "new" sign for Golden City back in March of last year? Well, I did confirm that the place was under new ownership. I tried to get the Missus to check them out, but after our last visit, albeit under the previous owners, well it was not to be. Then, back at the end of last year, I met my good friend Candice for lunch and we decided on Golden City.
The restaurant was pretty much empty during our entire visit.
It was great seeing Candice again and between catching up on things we managed to order a couple of dishes.
Starting with the Shrimp with XO Sauce....or perhaps I should call it Shrimp with the breath of XO Sauce as it hardly had any of the rich "seafood umami" that XO sauce brings to a dish.
The onions and bell peppers were a bit overcooked as was the shrimp, which was starting to get rubbery. Because of the lack of flavor, the dish had a slight "greasiness" to it.
Of course we got the half Roast Duck.
While the fat had been decently rendered, the skin was strangely chewy, but at least the skin had flavor. Can't say much for the dry and chewy meat, which was quite bland.
Knowing we'd have leftovers, I ordered one of the Missus's favorites; the Salted Fish and Chicken with Eggplant.
Much like other recent versions we've had, it seemed like the amount of salted fish was lacking. Perhaps I need to create an "endangered species" bulletin on salted fish? The eggplant was undercooked and fibrous as well.
The one dish that the both of us were looking forward to was the Dry Scallop, Shrimp, and Chinese Broccoli Fried Rice. A dish that Candice had recommended to us before that really delivered. Well, this time, I think the dried scallop was "lost in the mail" somewhere....maybe it was swimming around with the MIA salted fish?
At least the shrimp was decently cooked; but the rice was not, as there were some hard grains. The Gailan was also a rarity in this dish that seemed so haphazardly cooked. I really felt bad for Candice as this used to be one of her favorite dishes here.
This disappointing visit had me wondering what one of favorite dishes of yesteryear, the Kwai Fei Ji was like these days. So, I put off doing a post until I could try the Kwai Fei chicken again. Which ended up taking over two months!
But here I was, looking over the lunch specials and finding that Kwai Fei Chicken isn't on any of the lunch specials these days.
Which meant I had to order half a chicken ($17.95) and a side of rice ($1.50).
And while the rice was on the dry side and the sauce for the chicken was a bit heavy in the oil department, this was pretty good overall. The skin while a bit on the chewy side had nice flavor and as a while the chicken had been nicely poached as the flesh was quite tender and there were hints of winey-gingery-"fowlness". One positive for having a rather oil heavy sauce was that it clung nicely to the chicken.
Well, at least the Kwai Fei Chicken was pretty good. And the woman working on this day; I don't recall seeing her before, was so nice and friendly.
Our "history" with Golden City goes all the way back to the pre-blogging days, back when the restaurant was located on Convoy. My first post on Golden City was when they reopened in this location back in 2005! Back then, we considered the place a good value, with decent food. Not sure about the bang for the buck these days, but I'm hoping the place isn't just a "one trick pony" kwai fei ji place.
Golden City Restaurant
5375 Kearny Villa Rd.
San Diego, CA 92123
Current Hours:
Mon - Tues, Thurs - Sat 11am - 9pm
Sunday 11am - 830pm
Closed on Wednesday
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