Oriento Grill serves large, tasty meals

Stacee Sledge

Feb 20, 2003 — Several years ago, our friends Julie and Damon suggested my husband and I try Oriento Grill, a Chinese restaurant on Meridian Street.

We stopped in and had a pleasant-enough experience, but nothing exceptional.

When Julie asked our opinion, we shrugged a somewhat unenthused reply. She insisted we go together and give Oriento another try, letting her and Damon do the ordering. What ensued was a fabulous meal to remember.

Oriento offers three spacious dining rooms, one smoking and two nonsmoking. The decor is more upscale than some area Chinese restaurants, tastefully decorated with traditional touches.

A recent visit found the four of us famished, looking forward to the usual mix of egg rolls, soup and entrées.

As you would expect, the meal began with hot tea poured by our friendly server. He left us with the teapot and let us peruse the menu for a few minutes.

We deferred to Damon and let him order for us all: egg rolls, hot and sour soup, egg foo young, Mandarin chicken, Mongolian beef and moo shu pork.

Oriento Grill

Location: 2500 Meridian St. Phone: 733-3322 Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., daily Serving: Quality, affordable Chinese cuisine in a comfortable setting. Menu items sampled:  Egg rolls $1.50 each  Hot and sour soup $4.95  Chicken egg foo young $7.50 Mandarin chicken $8.50 Mongolian beef $8.50  Moo shu pork $8.50

It sounds like a lot of food — and it was. We each ate more than our fill and I even had a sizeable leftover portion for lunch the next day. All this fabulous food, plus the complimentary hot tea and a closer of oranges and fortune cookies, came to $40. Unbelievable.

To start, four plump egg rolls were presented on an oblong china plate, each cut in half at an angle and heaped atop a bed of shredded cabbage in a decorative manner. They accompanied a small bowl of sweet-and-sour sauce with a dollop of hot mustard in the middle. Damon asked for more hot mustard, which was brought immediately. I learned the hard way that a little hot mustard goes a long way.

The crispy egg rolls were fried, of course, but tasted light. We dipped the egg rolls in the syrupy sauce, adding hot mustard to the mix for a fiery finish.

A large decorative bowl of hot and sour soup was brought next, our server ladling the tangy broth into each of our bowls. Slivers of red-tinged barbequed pork mingled with bamboo shoots, ribbons of cooked egg, strips of tofu, thin circles of scallion and bean sprouts.

The rice wine vinegar, soy and sesame oil mixed with chicken stock to give the soup a strong bite. Although the serving is billed as being for three, the four of us each had enough for one generous serving — and two even had second helpings.

Our server stopped by the table often to see that we had everything we needed and to carefully clear all used plates and bowls just in time for the next course.

Just before the entrées arrived, he brought each of us a heavy round china plate, its rim decorated with a colorful dragon design. The plates were comfortably hot to the touch, pulled straight from a plate warmer.

The Mandarin chicken, an ample mound of round white chicken breast pieces breaded, fried and served over a bed of dried rice noodles, was exceptional.

I had never had egg foo young before and didn't know what to expect.

The thick pancake-like dish, created with a mélange of eggs, bean sprouts, scallion and other veggies, arrived swathed in a sunny yellow sauce. Damon chose chicken to accompany our egg foo young, but we could have chosen pork, beef, prawn or a combination of the four.

Moo shu pork is always fun to eat, and it's done exceptionally well at Oriento. Delicate rice pancakes were brought to the table in a bamboo steamer, alongside a bowl of sweet plum sauce and a platter piled high with a mixture of cooked egg, cabbage, scallions and shredded barbecue pork.

We each took a pancake, swirled the deep burgundy plum sauce over it and heaped on moo shu pork, folding it all together carefully to enjoy the blend of sweet and savory.

There wasn't a missed note among any of the dishes we shared, yet the Mongolian beef stood out as my favorite.

Soft sautéed onions were jumbled with thin strips of USDA-choice, center-cut New York steak, garlic, ginger and flat lengths of green scallion.

Our tea cups were refilled and all of our empty plates were whisked away, to be replaced with the final, complimentary course.

Although it's a small detail, Oriento's fortune cookie impressed me: fresh, crisp and flavorful. They came with four oranges, decoratively halved, each topped with a toothpick holding half a maraschino cherry.

This visit yielded an exceptional dinner, but Julie and Damon tell me Oriento also is fabulous for lunch, with generous portion sizes and great prices. Daily specials are just $5.55, available Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and include a cheese wonton, soup of the day, fried rice and fortune cookie.