As I’ve mentioned before in previous food reviews, I don’t like to walk to get food when it’s cold outside. Sometimes I’ll make the trek to T-Dubs, but if I’m already wearing cozy sweatpants and slippers, there’s no chance I’ll walk to Eick when it’s cold.
As you probably know, it was really cold on Friday night, and I did not want to walk anywhere. I didn’t know what I was in the mood for (pasta, Chinese … the list seemed endless), so I turned to my good friend Grubhub and searched the “best” restaurants in the nearby area.
As I scrolled through the list of 30 or so restaurants, Royal Chef caught my eye. The Chinese restaurant’s menu seemed endless — it took me quite some time to decide what to order. Eventually, my boyfriend and I decided we would order the shrimp lo mein and the bourbon chicken combination platters (to share, of course). Each of the combination platters came with an egg roll and pork fried rice, and we decided to order an extra pizza egg roll just because it sounded fun.
The delivery time wasn’t the shortest — it took a little over an hour for our food to get here. We did, however, order on a Friday night at around 7 p.m., so the long wait wasn’t a surprise.
By the time the food got here we were so hungry that almost anything probably would have tasted good, but I’d say that the meal definitely hit the spot. Neither of us knew which meal to start with, so we put them both out in front of us, alternating bites of each meal.
While the shrimp lo mein was good, it wasn’t anything special. The lo mein tasted like lo mein I could have gotten anywhere else, and the shrimp wasn’t super hot, which seafood absolutely should be. I still ate nearly every bite, though, so I wouldn’t say it was a total disappointment.
The bourbon chicken, on the other hand, was absolutely ah-mazing. I’ve never had any type of chicken from a Chinese restaurant that was so good. As the meal reached the bottom, my boyfriend and I had to fight over who would get the last piece. Seriously, though, he has a black eye from it (semi-joking).
As for the pizza egg roll, it was good but not great. I’d rate it as better than a pizza roll but not as good as a bagel bite. My boyfriend, on the other hand, the pizza roll aficionado, would wholeheartedly disagree.
Although Royal Chef certainly doesn’t beat my favorite hometown Chinese restaurant, I’ll definitely be ordering from there again in the near future. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I develop a Royal Chef bourbon chicken addiction.
