Life > April 26, 2007

By By Lukia Kliossis | Staff writer

Located in a shopping center behind the car dealerships off Stratford Road, Szechuan Palace has an unassuming entrance. Inside the Chinese restaurant is tastefully decorated in mainly red and black with a combination of booths and tables.

The host promptly seated us and told us about the Sunday lunch buffet available for $7.95.

The buffet consisted of a spread of Chinese meat, vegetable and starch dishes, as well a salad bar, soups and desserts.

The rest of the menu consists of house specialties, such as General Tso Chicken ($10.95) and Peking Duck ($15.95). They also have a small selection of Indian entrees.

Like your typical Chinese restaurant, pint and quart-sized orders of fried rice, chow mein, egg foo yung and lo mein are available, as well as traditional chicken, pork, beef, seafood, tofu and vegetable entrees.

We both decided to do the buffet, since at $7.95 per person it's quite a bargain while offering the opportunity to sample a variety of Chinese dishes. Since I usually stick to basics like chicken fried rice and egg rolls, this was a quite an adventure.

Some of our favorites were the Cantanese-style boneless chicken and potatoes, vegetable lo mein, shrimp fried rice and the egg rolls.

We also tried sweet and sour pork and green beans. The sauce for the sweet and sour pork unusually resembled the taste of ketchup, and the green beans were very salty.

We decided to try the egg drop soup, which tasted like raw eggs - somewhat revolting. We also tried the desserts, fried pineapple and Chinese doughnuts.

The fried pineapple was okay, though pineapple and grease do not go together in my opinion. As for the doughnuts, they were pretty tasteless - definitely not Krispy Kreme. Overall, the all-you-can-eat Sunday lunch buffet was a good deal and an excellent way to try different things without having to order a whole entree and risk not liking it.

Even though the food was not anything special from your ordinary Chinese take-out, the service was excellent, as the waiters were all friendly and attentive.

The atmosphere is also nicer than I expected from the outside.

Take-out is available from Szechuan Palace. However, if you want Chinese takeout I would recommend just ordering from one of the nearby restaurants that deliver to campus.

If you're near the mall and in the mood for Chinese, I would give Szechuan Palace a try.

But it's a little too far from campus and mediocre to add to my list of frequently visited restaurants in Winston-Salem.