Canton Gourmet - excellent
Ate at Canton Gourmet which on Prince right at 38th. Its a well-lit small restaurant that has two rooms and every table was packed with local families, there is a big red onning in front and you can't miss it.
Went with two friends one of whom had been raving about this crab dish. She'd been trying to get me to go for a while, so we decided to go to catch up. The service was pretty good and our waiter was night. We ordered the following:
- Garlic Chicken: you can't miss it b/c it has a massive picture stating that it is a house specialty (rightfully so); its a whole roasted chicken that is chopped up and then covered in fried garlic and scallions (with some oil)...the chicken is nice and tender and the fried garlic is very good. This dish was awesome
- Garlic crab - again you can't miss it b/c it has a massive picture stating that it is a house specialty' this is a crab that has been fried in a salt and pepper type batter and then covered in the same type of fried garlic and scallions although its a bit spicier. They bring the fresh crab out to you before to ask if you approve, its a really large crab and there is tons of meat. Can't say enough about this dish, its stellar although its a pain in the ass to eat just like any crab
- salty fish fried rice - pretty good, just standard fried rice with lots of salted fish in it; tastes much better once u get some chili sauce in it
Definatley recommend this restaurant as its very good and i will definately be returning. Fyi, the preparation of the crab and chicken is pretty similar so you might want to switch it up, but if you go you'll basically see that every table has one of the two or both.
Lau
Oct 28, 2007 05:59PM
I've been meaning to try this place for a long time. It is always crowded, even when every other place is empty, and that's always a good sign.
38-08 Prince St, Queens, NY 11354, USA
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its definately worth trying...one of the better restaurants i've been to in flushing in a while
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I've been meaning to try it for quite some time -- but it's always full!
Have you tried Ocean Jewels yet?
www.chowhound.com/topics/435984
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i've eaten there quite a bit in the past for dim sum and once for dinner...i do think that its a solid restaurant, its more of a broad cantonese seafood type restaurant vs canton gourmet, which seemed somewhat more specialist (although given i've only eaten there once)
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I went this afternoon. Got there at 5 PM and the place was empty. A good time to go. Two hours later you'd be standing in line in the street hoping someone would vacate a table. On your recommendation I had the chicken and I'm glad I did. It was wonderful. Half a chicken, a VERY big chicken, on a huge platter topped by a heap of minced scallions, celery, and something like potato chips. A good deal for $11. The menu has 175 dishes, not counting lunch dishes, so there's a lot to try when I go back. 20 casseroles, including such novelties as veal chop and eggplant in mini-wok. Lots of seafood too.
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glad you liked it and judging from the 175 dishes you proved my assertion of it being more specialized wrong haha....although when i was there literally every table had one or both dishes on it
good point it was cheap now that i think about it although i dont think the crab is that cheap, want to say its like $42, although its a lot of crab and a pretty good deal for good crab
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After reading this thread, my wife and I went there with a friend of ours and really enjoyed it. Besides the garlic chicken, we also had the West Lake beef soup, pan-fried noodles with shrimp and veggies, salt & pepper pork, and the sauteed string beans. All was very yummy, but I particularly liked the chicken and the sauteed string beans which are served spicy and very tasty!
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Thank you, Lau, for this post.
As luck would have it, I was attending a family support function at the Flushing Sheraton today, so I stole away to Canton Gourmet and got a half-order of the Garlic Chicken, plus some steamed Chinese Broccoli with garlic sauce, to go. The chicken dish is all you made it out to be - crispy skin, heavy on the salt and garlic flavorwithout going overboard, moist, silky smooth and juicy on the inside. The broccoli dish, usually an afterthought at so many places, was crispy, fresh, with the brown sauce on the slightly sweet and tangy side. Very nice. As I sat waiting for my order, the larger-than-life photos of other dishes, in particular the seafood offerings, already had me planning a return trip in my head.
Bear in mind: the half-order of garlic chicken - clocking in at just over 10 bucks- can easily serve two. After sharing some with some co-workers, I easily have enough left for dinner. P.
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Well thank you for this. I am now a Flushing convert so will have to try the chicken and crab very soon.
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Second visit, and I liked what I got this time even better than the famous chicken. Veal chops and eggplant in mini-wok.($14) Tender, flavorful veal short ribs, the cut they call tiro de asado in S. American steakhouses and eggplant with a bit of a brown sauce, as advertised in a small wok. The veal had been marinated in a sweet flavorful sauce. And, like a surprise home run out of left field (if there is such a thing), what lifted this dish out of the good but not unusual category and deposited it firmly in the extraordinary, were tiny dried fermented and very pungent shrimp and also slices of pickled vegetables.
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glad other dishes are good there too...need to go back soon
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I made my third visit tonight. Pan-fried veal chop with dried shallot was my choice, and a great choice it was. Tender toothsome veal, with a sweet marinade, in a big heap (but an aesthetically pleasing heap, they didn't just dump it on the plate) covered with crunchy fried shallots and dried shrimp, as well as lots of celery and red and green pepper slices. This was a lot like what I ordered before (the house chicken and the veal with eggplant) and indeed this sort of thing is, I think, the house specialty: delicious meat (or fish or seafood) served marinated but more or less without sauce with a heap of sauteed goodies on top. But it was different enough from the other two not to be a repetition. And the service is great too, they even remembered from my visit almost 3 weeks ago that I prefer water to tea. So Canton Gourmet is still excellent. Maybe I'll try a casserole next time.
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