Eddie Cheng – Richfield, MN

I’ll preface this review by saying Gerd and I went here at one point last year. Sort of. We walked in and Gerd walked right back out, shaking her head. She had great intuition about food places.

I had to run some errands for lunch and I remembered this place was nearby. You’re not likely to drive by it, since it’s basically behind a big-store strip mall. However, if your errands take you to the Richfield Liquor Sto (which mine did not), then you’ll see Eddie Cheng’s from the parking lot if you look really hard.

Since the place was sort of in a strip mall, I had high hopes for this restaurant, despite walking out of the place before ordering last year. During lunch they have an “express lunch” where you order off this buffet-style thing and they throw it into a Styrofoam container for you. Or you can order off the menu if you’d like. I ordered Hunan Chicken, Broccoli Beef, and Kung Pao Chicken. It came with pork-fried rice and I also ordered an egg roll. The guy heaped the food into the container to the point where *I* was even impressed. LOADS of food.

I found a table in the oddly empty dining room, snapped a quick photo, and started eating.

The egg roll was probably the best part. Lots of veggies and no cinnamon – it was one of the better ones I’ve had up here in Minneapolis. The huge portion of pork fried rice was good and had lots of bite-sized pieces of pork in it. The Broccoli Beef was sub-par actually. The pieces of meat were kind of gristly (my John Deere friends call it “snapper beef” cause it snaps you in the face when you break through the gristle), and the pieces were too big to actually fit in your mouth (and I have a huge mouth – ask anyone). The Hunan Chicken had a good flavor, but again, the pieces were REALLY big. The hunan sauce was spicy and sweet at the same time and I kind of liked this stuff. Lots of broccoli and baby corn and peapods. The Kung Pao Chicken was not the greatest I’ve ever had. It was missing a lot of the Pow that I find at other places, in fact a lot of the flavor was gone. There were lots of veggies though – green peppers, water chestnuts, baby corn, and celery (which Gerd would have hated).

All in all, not the greatest Chinese food I’ve ever had. I’ve had some that were worse, but not many. I probably won’t go back, but I’m glad I checked it off my list. At the very least, it was fast and I got back to work on time.

Top 5 things about Eddie Cheng
1. It was fast
2. Eggroll
3. It was cheap
4. Pork Fried Rice
5. Hunan sauce for the hunan chicken

Bottom 5 things
1. I was totally wrong in second guessing Gerd’s food intuition
2. Giant pieces of meat (twss)
3. Flavorless Kung Pao
4. Everything served to go
5. The place is really difficult to accidentally find – maybe that’s why it was empty at lunch – or maybe there are other reasons (see above review)