Hong Kong City - Colonial Park

Overall Rating: Good
Highlight: Variety of Food
Lowlight: Not a fancy dining room
Veggie Note: There are three very different types of cuisine on this menu, so you have to fumble through it to find all of the vegetarian options available, they are not all collected in one place or designated with a symbol. But there are lots of choices.

We were doing a little late evening shopping and were looking for a good option for take out dinner to bring home with us.

Hong Kong City is a fairly standard looking Chinese (American style) restaurant that probably does about 50% of its business in take-out (that was about the average while we were sitting there waiting.) The nice thing here is that they not only have a pretty complete menu of traditional Chinese-American dishes, they also have a small Thai section and a nice sushi bar menu. It's a very plain dining room (although they do try with the typical cheesy decorations). We weren't looking to sit down and eat, so I didn't give it much thought. It's not a fancy restaurant by any means. It was very clean and bright however, I'm not trying to say you shouldn't eat-in there. We walked up to the register to place our order. We were told it would be about 20 minutes, and that was pretty accurate.


We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Nothing complementary came with our take-out food, but I did see a couple eating-in that had crispy noodles and duck sauce on their table, I am assuming that they were served complimentary.
  

Off the Chinese Menu Section:

• Szechuan Style Bean Curd - one of a couple tofu/bean curd dishes available (there was also Hunan style and General Tso's style.) It was spicy, but not too spicy (could have been spicier really). We noticed after ordering that there is a little place on their take out menu that you can check off for how spicy you want your meal. We'll remember that in the future. The tofu was cut into long strips, almost like chicken stir-fry pieces, instead of just being cubed and fried. It was nice to see a detail like that. It makes you feel like they spent time thinking about and preparing the dish. Overall this was a pretty good dish.

Off the Sushi Menu:

• Vegetable Maki Combo - listed as three "vegetable rolls" on the menu, mine was prepared with an avocado roll, an avocado mango roll and a roll with avocado and sliced up pieces of inari (sweet tofu pancake) inside. I love avocado, but this was actually a bit of overload for me. On a positive note though, the avocado was at its peek of ripeness, so buttery and delicious. I had no problem finishing it all in the end. The combo meal also came with miso soup and salad with ginger dressing. Much like my experience at Mikado on 2nd, the dressing here was really chunky and ugly colored on top and then super watery at the bottom. It looks so unappealing. I have had much better looking ginger dressing in my lifetime, but so far I have not found it here in Harrisburg. I will say that while we were wandering the aisles of Costco recently, I noticed a big jug of similarly ugly-looking ginger dressing on the shelf - coincidence? There was no Costco near where we used to live, hmmmm...
• We also ordered some a la carte Inari and Tamago, our two favorite seaweed minimal sushi varieties for my seaweed-averted partner. They were good, as usual. I was reading the specials from the sushi bar, and one of their fancy rolls of the day (The Yellow Submarine) was yellowfin tuna rolled in a yellow soy wrapper. We have seen these fancy alternative sushi wrappers before (and bought a variety pack at Wegman's once). If we could talk the sushi chef into using those wrappers on some veggie rolls, that could really open the door to sushi for the seaweed opposed, and add a little fun to the very green appearance of most veggie sushi.

Just a few other notes:

To give you a rough idea, since the menu is not available online, other vegetarian options included a vegetable choice in all of the standard Chinese-American dishes (lo mein, fried rice, moo shu, egg foo young, etc...). They also had a couple other veggie dishes listed with the bean curd ones (a broccoli dish of some sort - sorry these details have left my brain now). They had Pineapple Fried Rice on the Thai menu (I'd check to make sure this is definitely meat free). The Pad Thai and other Thai dishes did not have veggies or tofu listed as an option, but I'd be willing to bet they would do some substituting for your here. There were not too many other veggie sushi options available. I asked them if they ever have sweet potato tempura rolls as a special and they said yes. I think they were pretty open to special requests here as well. In addition, they had edemame in the appetizer section of the menu.

I feel with any restaurant being managed by folks for whom English is not necessarily their first language (and even in some cases where English is the only language your server has ever spoken) the word vegetarian does not always translate perfectly. Be really careful with dishes marked "vegetable" but not necessarily "vegetarian." Ask questions, be specific, and peek inside your dish before you start chowing down. We had no problems here at Hong Kong City.

Final Thoughts: Trying to not compare Hong Kong City to the fancy, sit-down Asian style restaurants we have been too, this is a really nice place. For take-out or a quick eat-in meal, this is definitely a really nice place. Our food was all very delicious and we had no shortage of vegetarian choices to make. This will definitely be a place we will consider returning to when we're in the mood for take-out.

Okini Pan Asian - Progress (Harrisburg)

Overall Rating: Somewhere around Neutral
Highlight: Sweet Potato Roll
Lowlight: Chinese Eggplant and Limited Veggie Sushi Selection
Veggie Note: There is a “Vegetables” section in the non-sushi part of the menu. There are a handful of vegetable rolls and tamago on the sushi menu

We headed here to continue our quest for good vegetarian sushi.

Okini Pan Asian is a combination Chinese, Japanese, Thai restaurant in the Progress area of the Harrisburg suburbs. We were seated right away and the servers were very quick to our table. It was a little dark and the whole restaurant has an old carpet on the floor, a little bit icky. We’re not big fans of carpets in restaurants, kitchens and bathrooms. The restaurant was generally very comfortable and clean however. When a table finished and left, all of the available servers flocked the table and cleaned it immediately so it stayed very nice the whole time we were there.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Edemame – as soon as we sat down we were served a bowl of warm salty edemame pods. They were very tasty and a nice treat. It was odd that edemame were also listed for $5 in the appetizer section of the menu. I guess some people just can’t get enough soy beans.

Soup:

• Miso – there were no sushi entrees that were vegetarian, so I ordered a bowl of soup as an extra. It was pretty standard miso soup. Some of the miso wasn’t mixed in very well so it was in little clumps I had to break up, but otherwise it was the same as everywhere else.

Entrees:

• Chinese Eggplant in Garlic Sauce – listed as spicy in the menu (with the ubiquitous pepper icon). It was definitely not what my partner was hoping for. The sauce was not spicy at all and was actually super sweet and syrupy. The eggplant, bell peppers and onion were all very fresh though, so they may satisfy a different pallet. This came with a bowl of white rice as well.

Sushi A la Carte:

• Tamago – if it’s available, we’ll probably always order this. It was average here.
• Vegetable Supreme Roll – Asparagus, cucumber, avocado and oshinko prepared like a hand roll, very nice presentation. A little too much cucumber made it kind of watery but the ingredients were very fresh and crispy.
  
• Green Roll – this was interesting and something I’ve never had before. It was a roll of nothing but seaweed salad (the kind you usually eat in a bowl – salty/stringy seaweed). It wasn’t fabulous because the seaweed was a bit overwhelming, but it was definitely something different and fun to try.
  
• Sweet Potato Roll - my weakness. I love sweet potato tempura wrapped up in a sushi roll. Especially when it is freshly warm out of the frying oil like it was here. Again the presentation was very nice. I really enjoyed this roll.

Dessert:

• Fried Banana – the only dessert available was this tempura fried banana. It was cut into 1 inch pieces and fried and then set back in the peel which was cleverly peeled to look like a snail or something else with maraschino cherry antennae. Then the whole thing was doused in whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Pretty tasty but it definitely needed the whipped cream and chocolate since the banana itself wasn't very sweet and could have maybe benefitted from a little added sugar. But this was really fun and tasty overall. I love tempura fried anything for the most part. I once had a dream that I was making a salad with tempura fried root vegetables on top. I was particularly interested in the tempura fried red beets I had conjured up, some day I plan to really try that. I’ll bet it would be good. (end of dream sequence)

Just a few other notes:

This is another BYOB restaurant, we didn’t take anything with us, but the couple behind us had a bottle of wine and the restaurant was quick to provide glasses for them.

There were about 6 dishes total in the “vegetables” section of the menu. There were a few curries in the Thai section and tofu was not a listed option, however it was included in a few other dishes so I am sure it could be easily substituted for one of the meaty options given.

Aside from the rolls I ordered, there was really only an avocado roll to complete the vegetarian selections. There was also no inari in the a la carte menu.

Final Thoughts: I guess the quest for a good vegetarian sushi joint continues… stop here for a sweet potato roll someday, you’ll thank me.

Bangkok Wok - Mechanicsburg

Overall Rating: Yippee!
Highlight: great selection, great taste
Lowlight: cramped for space
Veggie Note: The staff here clearly understand the vegetarian diet; the menu indicates all vegetarian and vegan dishes and also specifically requests that you tell your server if you are vegetarian or vegan so they may prepare your food accordingly :)

We made a special trip here, for dinner with a non-veggie friend, after hearing several good reviews of the food here (from a non-vegetarian perspective).

Thai food is what we crave when something hot and spicy is on our minds. We have not explored the world of Thai food in the Harrisburg area yet and a few folks from work had said Bangkok Wok really is the best Thai in the area, so we thought we'd put that to the test. The restaurant is very casual, located in a strip mall in a fairly overdeveloped commercial area just outside the Mechanicsburg Naval Base. It's amusingly decorated outside, imagine waking through a tropical jungle to get to the front door and you can pretty much get the picture. That theme follows you through the door and slaps you in the face with visual overstimulation. There are decorative bits of Thailand everywhere. We were seated at a booth like table, it was a little tight for two to sit on the bench (and we are average sized people). However, we were seated right away and our server was very quick to take a drink order. It took us quite a while to pour through the menu, it was like a short novel. We were so excited about all of the choices and very pleased to find clear markings of what is vegan and vegetarian on the menu. Every page had a note at the bottom requesting that you tell your server if you are vegetarian/vegan as well. When we ordered, we made sure to do this. Our server looked puzzled at or statement at first, but then when we pointed at the note in the menu, it seemed to click for her.

We had the following:

Complimentary:
Nothing complimentary served here

Appetizer:
Veggie Roll - this item is not listed on the online menu, but was in the printed menu and listed as Vegan. It is essentially a spring roll with bean thread noodles, carrots, cabbage, etc... It was very fresh and the roll was light and crispy. It came with a side of Pineapple dipping sauce which was very nice as well.

Soup:

Tom Ka Kai - again, in the print menu the option to have this soup with tofu is given (online only chicken is listed). We asked the waitress if the soup is prepared vegetarian if tofu was used and she said yes. The broth was a rich coconut and lime base, pleasantly saltier than the sweet broth my partner thought it might end up being. The tofu pieces were big and tasty, not like the tiny bits usually found in soups like Miso. There were mushrooms, tasty bits of fresh ginger root, and fresh Thai basil finishing off this very delicious soup.

Entrees:

Green Curry with fried tofu - all of the curries on the menu are available with mixed vegetables or with fried tofu. This one said it was the hottest curry of them all, but it really wasn't that hot (too bad really - it would have been enjoyed a little hotter). The ingredients were very fresh tasting, including green beans and snow peas that didn't come across as frozen reheats. The pieces of bamboo shoot were also nicely sliced into julienne strips instead of the slabs you sometimes get in cheap Asian dishes. Overall this dish was a hit.

Masaman Curry with fried tofu - this dish was listed as one star hot, but it really was not spicy at all. In fact, it was quite creamy and sweet. The peanut sauce was absolutely heavenly, the kind of thing that makes you almost put your plate to your face and start licking the last little bits off. It came served with onions and potatoes, in addition to the fried tofu. There was enough here for two people really - that goes for all the dishes we got. They all went home with us and were reheated for lunch (and once again, one very unusual breakfast) the next day.

Chicken with Thai Basil and Hot Peppers - this obviously is not vegetarian, but since our friend ordered it, and you may want to take along a meatatarian yourself, I thought it couldn't hurt to post some comments here. The waitress recommended this dish to our friend. She said it was pretty spicy and our friend asked to have it made super spicy. It was still not as hot as we expected it to be when it came out. The basil was overwhelming in this dish, so I would recommend steering clear of this one if you're not a basil fan (of course that would be obvious to most by the name of the dish). The sauce was dark and also had pieces of hot pepper floating in it. The chicken was really well made, not cheap little bits, but quality pieces of fresh chicken. They got a big thumbs up from our friend. With a little bit of the peanut sauce stolen from my dish, this ended up being a very good dinner also.

Jasmine Rice - came with all of our dishes. We asked for extra as we plowed through ours and it was quickly brought to us. It was plain jasmine rice, nothing fancy added, but that was great since our dishes all had a lot of flavor on their own.

Just a few other notes:

Bangkok Wok is a BYOB restaurant. We took a couple bottles of beer in with us. We asked for a bottle opener and they found us one, but they didn't seem prepared for us to need one, so maybe a lot of folks don't show up with their own beer?

In addition to decorations all over the walls, etc... Our table was also loaded with flowers, fancy light fixtures, etc... which made it a real challenge to fit our dishes on. Each of us received a bowl of rice, a bowl with our entree and we already had a plate in front of us when we sat down. That coupled with water glasses, etc... It was kind of a challenge. I can't imagine how we would have dealt with all four seats filled at our table. The traditional, non-booth tables looked a little bigger, so if you need space, you might want to ask for one of those.

They may be a little afraid of serving dishes too spicy here. Our friend who asked for "extra spicy" pointed out to us that our server looked as though she thought we might not know what we were getting into by asking for things very spicy. You might want to make a point of letting them know you are serious about having very spicy food if that's what you really want. If you are afraid of spicy, than you should still be okay here.

Final thoughts: This really is a great place for vegetarians to get good Thai food. No need to dress up, but you might want to plan on a wait as it got super crowded here as the night went on. I am certain we will return here soon, if for nothing else, to get some of that peanut sauce to go!