Best of Tucson 1996: Best Chinese

Best Chinese

Mandarin Grill
505 E. Grant Road

READERS' PICK: We've just come home from a hard day in the Tucson sun, and we're ready for four hours of reruns on television. Halfway through Seinfeld, we start to feel hungry. But if we get up and go to the kitchen we could miss something. What to do...? Just then we remember, there's that Chinese food place on East Grant Road, and the phone's within arm's reach. Without leaving the couch we call 411 and get the info for Mandarin Grill...do they deliver? They do, we are assured. Luckily, their menu is the standard set list for American Chinese restaurants--a mixture of Mandarin and Cantonese food. We ask if they have sesame chicken and/or sautéed bean curd...yes, they have both. Thirty-five minutes later we make the short trip to the front door and are greeted by a guy who seems overjoyed with our dollar-fifty tip.

The bean curd is fresh and well complemented by a piquant brown sauce, and the sesame chicken...well, sesame chicken is the real test of a Chinese restaurant. Very few can make it sweet but not too sweet--one false move and you have chicken-flavored hard candy. But Mandarin Grill pulls it off, delicately combining the sweet with the sesame and meat flavors, without losing any single element. So, of course, we overeat as we watch Detective Sipowics complain about his prostrate problems. Now, we know we must wait for the inevitable gastric distress...we wait, and wait...it never comes. With a healthy stomach we turn in, understanding well why Mandarin Grill is The Best of Tucson.

READERS' POLL RUNNER-UP: While it's long been suggested to many of us that Tucson is decidedly lacking in outstanding Chinese restaurants, there have nevertheless been a few establishments that have worked their way into the hearts and stomachs of the locals. Prime among these exceptions-to-the-rule is The Golden Dragon, with three locations (6433 N. Oracle Road, 6166 E. Speedway, and 4704 E. Sunrise Drive). The Dragon entices customers to return again and again for luncheon specials and family combo meals from its extensive menu. Chef's recommendations make the ordering process easier for those overwhelmed by the myriad of possibilities, which not only include the familiar sweet-and-sour, moo shu, chow mein and moo goo gai pan, but also items like spicy Hunan beef with scallops, shrimp with spicy salt, and a dish called "a hundred hummingbirds" (which has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual petite winged creatures). Portions are generous, the ingredients fresh and the prices reasonable.

STAFF PICK: Susie Wei has owned Old Peking Restaurant, 2522 E. Speedway, for the last three years. In her goal to provide healthy Chinese food to Tucson, she's changed all the sauces, making them lighter (but still tasty) and sans MSG. House specialties include sesame chicken, scallops in black pepper sauce, and "Phoenix and Dragon," a chicken/shrimp combo with vegetables. High praise for the bean curd Szechwan style.