Spices: A Misnomer

This will be a quick one. Michael had a craving for Chinese food last night. Well, as far as we have discovered there is no good Chinese food in Washington, not even average Chinese food, so we were reduced to ordering takeout from Spices which has the major benefit of being close to us. We had a large feast of tofu "fries", dragon dumplings, caramelized chicken, "shaking" beef, crispy vegetables, and curry laksa.

The tofu looked like fries (same shape) but were flabby and gummy, although pleasantly spicy. The dragon dumplings were reasonably tasty although doughy. The caramelized chicken was not. It was chicken pieces sauteed with onions in a generic brown sauce. The shaking beef was tough little cubes of meat with large untrimmed stalks of some green Chinese vegetable. The crispy vegetables were also not. Sauteed in the same generic brown sauce as the chicken, along with big square chunks of tofu (better than the fries, but not much). The laksa was good, I thought, moderately spicy with a hint of coconut milk (Michael wanted more coconut flavor) and with large chunks of chicken and green beans and with bean sprouts and noodles to be added. A decent value at $10 and the only successful dish of the bunch.

Hopefully the next time Michael gets a craving for Chinese food we can wait until it goes away. Otherwise, I will hold out for City Lights which while not truly authentic, was much better than this poor collection.