Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Oriental Café

Tuesday afternoon. HburgVegetarian and I decided to hit up Oriental Café for lunch, a new oriental restaurant located behind Sheetz on University Boulevard. They serve sushi as well as traditional oriental food. I have heard very, very good things from other people about this restaurant, and I have ordered carry out from here once before that I was very satisfied with. I decided to go in and sit down and experience the restaurant from the inside.

We arrived around 12:15, and waited to be seated, which was very quick. The inside of the restaurant is small and had adequate seating, but isn't as large as some other restaurants in the area. There is a full-service bar as well as a television located by the bar playing some headlining sports games. Although I wouldn't call it "well" decorated, it had a certain ambience reminiscent of many other oriental restaurants I had eaten at before. The wait staff was very friendly and eager to serve us, and both of us ordered a water to drink because we were slightly (*ahem*) under the weather from the previous night.

Their style of serving was very interesting. They had kind of a "team" of servers all waiting on every table and helping each other. It seemed like a very popular spot for the "lunch hour" working crowd, and was decently busy while we were there. We both decided we wanted to try the sushi as well as a dish off the menu, so I ordered the Philadelphia Roll and Pork Fried Rice (I went with Fried Rice because I feel like in order for an asian restaurant to be passable it has to have decent fried rice at least, right?) . HburgVegetarian had Bean Curd Soup with Vegetables and the Asparagus Roll. Our food came out VERY quickly, and it was all very satisfying! The rice was well seasoned and cooked, with just the right balance of meat and vegetables. Her soup was hot but not HOT, and the sushi was very fresh and a good-sized portion. Overall, we were very pleased with our selections.

The only thing that was kind of "off" about the experience was language seemed to be a barrier at times. They came to check by very often, but a lot of the time we had to repeat ourselves or point to the menu to get what we were saying across. This was a little bit uncomfortable at times. Also, they had a Sushi Lunch Special I spotted off in the distance after I had ordered on a sign. It wasn't very well advertised and was kind of hard to read, but it seemed like it was composed of a variety of pieces of sushi paired with a seaweed salad for under $10. Seemed like a good deal, but I wish it would have been better advertised.

My total came to around $15 and was a pretty decent price for what I got. I will say the one time I ordered carry-out from here I ordered the "Crab Cheese Wontons" and I wish I had "room" this time to order them again. They were totally delicious.

Pork Fried Rice:


Bean Curd Soup with Vegetables:



Philadelphia Roll (left) and Asparagus Roll (right):




Food: A
Atmosphere: B+
Cleanliness: A
Service: B
Price: $$

Overall: B+

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