When’s the last time I ate chinese food in the city not in chinatown? I’m not sure if that’s ever actually happened. Mandarin Palace is a random chinese joint near rittenhouse. And you know what? Their food is damn good.
The crab rangoon. I’ve never had these before, although they’re typically found in menus at chinese joints in america. Who wouldn’t like deep fried cream cheese and crab wrapped in wonton? I love cream cheese. I love crab. I love fried wonton. Put it all together, I say!
General Tso’s chicken… served with egg roll and fried rice.
My chicken with asparagus, fried rice, egg roll. I don’t care how unauthentically chinese this is. I love me some americanized chinese food. Even after the crab rangoon and soup, I ate all of this.
And how can you not love a restaurant who hangs this type of art on their walls?

When it comes to an easy meal out near home, SangKee is always one of the top choices. The last time my mom and I stopped by, they had brand new menus with a fancy and colorful cover. It doesn’t matter what day or what time I go to this place. It’s always busy! And it makes sense, because their food is always consistently good.
Here’s something I’d never tried before in all of my previous visits – the fried shrimp dumplings. These suckers are hot, stuffed with yummy shrimp, and serviced with a sweet and savory dipping sauce.
My mom got the whole bronzino with ginger and soy sauce. This was a huge whole fish! Neither of us expected it to be this big. It was light and flaky and fresh. The sauce was a little boring and bland, they certainly could have kicked it up a notch. But it was well worth it. My mom got several more meals out of the leftovers!
I always like their big broth noodles bowls, so I mixed it up from my usual and got the stewed beef with udon noodles. The meat was tender and strong with 5-spice flavor, and I’m a total sucker for thick udon noodles. Service here is always good.

On one of our many recent rainy weekend days, we stopped by the Twisted Tail for a late brunch. They just opened in Headhouse Square and in addition to food and drink, offer live blues music and open blues jams, for those of you inclined. They’re also a bourbon house so they’ve got quite the array of liquors! They also feature a charcoal grill in their kitchen and cook most of their food over open heat, whenever possible.
Of course, they also have beer. The restaurant is really quite big, especially the downstairs. I did not get to check out the upstairs, where the music happens. It’s decorately quite tastefully, even with all of the curly tail motif everywhere. It’s warm and masculine, with a slightly rustic touch.
Here’s some complimentary bread, one which was a corn bread, and one which was a bourbon based bread, I think. See the curly q of butter? Yes, very cute. The corn bread wasn’t particularly corn tasting at all. I like the bourbon bread, it had a little sweetness.
This is the watermelon gazpacho. Delicious and refreshing! It’s made with watermalon, pear tomatoes, jicama, and opal basil. It was a lovely mix of sweet and savory, with nice hunks of the fruit and veggies. It was so surprising and great.
This is the grilled Jersey Blue Fish, with confetti rice, and grilled loco corn. The fish was cooked on the grill, skin on, and was moist and delicious. It had a great flavor, all on its own. The corn had some kind of bbq type of sauce on it, and while already super sweet already, had the added sweetness from the sauce. It was amazing!
I had my eye on the bison meatloaf, and after our server told us it was one of his favorites, I had to go with it. It’s made out of bison! And it comes with a portobello mushroom gravy and green pea whipped mash potatoes. It was all delicious! The meatloaf has a bit of a kick from the glaze that’s on the outside. I’m in love with this green pea whipped mash potato stuff. It’s chunky and has tons of potato skin in it and pea bits. I just loved it.
For dessert, our server recommended the Chocolate Symphony. Why the hell not? It’s a layer of white chocolate pound cake, layers of chocolate mascarpone, a layer of German chocolate cake, and topped with Godiva sauce. They put the sauce on at the table, so you can get as much as you want. So go all out people, go crazy! This thing is nuts! It’s incredibly dense, sweet, chocolatey, and way too much for a weakling like me. I was done after a few bites. But it’s everything you’d think it would be. This was a great meal. Neither of us had any kind of idea what this place would be like. It’s brand spankin’ new and in a location that seems to be fraught with closings. Well, we hope this place stays around for a long time. The food was great and so was the service. Especially the service!