Spring Garden

I've been sick for almost a week and a half. What a bore, I say (try saying it with a British accent, Professor McGonagall style). I haven't stepped out of my apartment unless absolutely necessary, and feeding myself was easy enough with foodler.com at my fingertips. One of my favorite places to order from is Spring Garden in the strip mall at 16th St and Spring St in Silver Spring. They're consistently fast at delivery and their food is mostly decent.

I always get soup, and my favorite is sweet and sour - good flavor and lots of vegetables and tofu. The wonton soup is alright, but the broth is a bit bland. My second favorite soup is the egg drop soup - I know, it's so boring, but I love the tissue paper thin sheets of eggs floating about the gently viscous soup. I usually add a bit of soy sauce and just a touch of sesame oil to it and it makes a pretty good soup about 10 times better. Now, I ordered their seafood soup as an experiment one day, and it was blech, gross, ew. It had quite a bit of shrimp, scallops, imitation crab meat, and calamari, as well as water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, carrots, and celery. But the broth was so boring and no matter what kind of condiments I added to it, I couldn't make myself eat the damned thing.

Their lo mein is pretty good - I have tried their beef, chicken, and shrimp lo mein, and I think shrimp is the best. Overall good seasoning, not too oily and the noodles have a good texture. Hunan chicken's pretty good also - lots of veggies and chicken doesn't taste as fake as some other Chinese delivery places. I don't know if you know what I mean, sometimes the chicken seems synthetic in texture and flavor - same goes for beef. I wish the hunan chicken was a bit more spicy, but that can be amended with some red chili oil or sriracha. My favorite thing about their food is that their sauces don't have the thick, goopy texture of sauces that most Chinese delivery places have - one can almost convince oneself to believe that they don't come in a gigantic tub labeled "brown sauce."

They also have sushi on the menu, so I decided to try it. After browsing through a bunch of items that you can find everywhere, my eyes stopped at crazy roll. It was salmon, avocado, and cucumber rolled in nori and rice, tempura battered and fried, then cut into 8 pieces, and sprinkled with chopped scallions and tobiko. It looked pretty good, but it didn't taste so good. Actually, it was pretty nasty. It was squishy and mushy in texture and there was no flavor - the salmon was pretty flavorless, and the rice was too soft. Even after being dunked in way too much soy sauce it was bland. After 2 pieces, I was forced to throw it out. It's called crazy roll for a reason, you have to be crazy to eat it!!

The almond cookies that I got for dessert was quite good. Nice and crispy but not hard, and you can definitely taste the almonds. I love that it's not that sweet - it goes perfectly with a cup of coffee. There are 4 cookies in an order and out of tonight's order, it was my favorite item.

If you're ever looking for food to be delivered, check out foodler.com. And if you're looking for Chinese food in Silver Spring, definitely give Spring Garden a try, but stay away from crazy roll. Seriously. Do try the lo mein and the almond cookies. Tasty tasty!!

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www.foodler.com/MD/Silver-Spring/Chinese/Spring-Garden/1507.html

Delicious Shrimp Heads

I was up late one night - for no reason really, just staying up late and flipping through TV channels. Food Network had me stop, drooling and suddenly hungry at 1:30am. I was looking at Food Network celebrities describing the best fried food they've ever had and then actually going to the restaurant and savoring it in the most mouthwatering fashion. Duff Goldman, the guy from Ace of Cakes talked about a sushi restaurant that served fried shrimp heads. He described how delicious it was and that they didn't have it on the menu. Who eats shrimp heads?! I thought they were filled with weird shrimp brains (do they have brains?) and goo. I was intrigued. So I tracked down Joss Cafe and Sushi Bar in Annapolis and ordered the fried shrimp heads. The server seemed surprised that I asked for them - since they're not on the menu and brought out the cute little heads, looking super crispy, with the black beady eyes looking up at me. The people at the next table asked what they were, so I explained my story and soon, I had an audience as I prepared to eat what we would generally throw out. I dipped one in some soy sauce and put the whole thing in my mouth. It was difficult to chew, as the head is very spiky and pretty large in size, but oh my gosh, it was amazing! The outside was crispy and a bit salty, but the inside was creamy with an intense shrimp flavor. It was like being in shrimp heaven. If you live in or are visiting the Annapolis area, you need to check out the shrimp heads at Joss Sushi. I think the next time I purchase shrimp, I'll reserve the heads and try deep frying them myself. Tasty tasty!!!!

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www.josscafe-sushibar.com