My good friend, Edmond Su, opened up a chinese restaurant a few months ago. I haven't been a good friend at keeping in touch, so I only found out about the restaurant last week. Turns out, the restaurant is pretty close to where we live.

My family was out to dinner one night, and I brought up to my parents that Edmond owns this restaurant now. We decided to visit the place to see how business was going. Turns out that even though he's only been in business a short while, he's doing pretty well. Drivers were coming in and out, and the phones were ringing off the hook. One thing Edmond told me is that they're actually surrounded by several chinese restaurants, so competition is high in the area, but he's modified his menu to be a fusion of "american-style" chinese food and more traditional chinese cuisine. He thinks that it's because of this that they're able to stand out in the midst of other local competitors.

So last night we decided to try the food for the first time. So I called Edmond up and just asked him to order me enough food for Carolyn and me. I left all the ordering in his hands and just let him take care of it.

When I got home and opened the bags, I realized that I think Edmond had forgotten exactly how much I eat, because there was easily enough food for 5-6 people! But it was delicious. Edmond included a wide variety of menu items for us to try. On the menu were some appetizers: Fried crab wontons, avocado and pork rolls, and wonton soup. For entrees, we had Black Pepper Shrimp and Scallops, Salt/Pepper Jalapeno Chicken Wings, Moo-Shu Pork, and Basil Chicken. Edmond also included two slices of cheesecake for dessert. Not quite a Chinese dessert, but I'm still gonna eat it later.

Everything was very good, but the entrees really stood out to me. Definitely not your standard Chinese food take-out. At least not in Austin. The Moo-Shu Pork was particularly tasty, especially when coupled with the sauce and wrapped in the chinese pan cakes. The shrimp and scallops dish were well paired with the other veggies in the dish. Carolyn did say that she wished we had gotten a stand-alone vegetable dish, but we can order that ourselves next time. I liked the basil chicken, although I'm not a huge fan of multiple fried foods, so I'd probably only get one fried item next time (no egg rolls). The chicken itself was tender and juicy though. And I'll have to say though that I was kinda surprised at the Jalapeno chicken wings. Again, it's not standard chinese food, but the wings had a very distinct asian flavor that made them very tasty.

Included in our meal, was a container of wasabi sauce, which I didn't know what it was for... but Edmond did say that he was trying out new sauces for his menu.

All in all, I filled myself up on the appetizers so I wasn't able to eat as much as I thought. But that means I'll have leftovers to tide me over for lunch today:) I'm really proud of my friend for working hard at his new business. It's always been a dream of his to open up a restaurant, and it's good to see things going well.