Cheap Combination Chinese Dinners on the UES

After a good weekend with a great crew up in Saratoga for a Dave Matthews Band concert, my roommates and I decided that a relaxing evening of takeout and tv was in order.  We recently received a menu for the grand opening of Guang Ming, a Chinese takeout restaurant on 1st between 91st and 92nd.

Immediately what caught my eye on the menu were the combination dinners.  While pork fried rice, an egg roll and an entree are standard in the ‘burbs, in Manhattan you are forced to order everything a la carte.  At Guang Ming, we were receiving the combination dinner, for a price I often pay at home in Connecticut.  My dinner came to $7.25, including rice and an egg roll, before tax.  If you didn’t feel like an egg roll, you can enjoy your choice of soup instead.  We also ordered some fried dumplings and barbecued boneless spare ribs.

We picked up our meal at the restaurant.  I would advise take out, only because the restaurant had one or two tables and was quite small.  The woman at the counter was really nice, even throwing in a few cans of soda for free.  We headed home and as we opened up our bags of food, noticed the portions were quite huge.  The combination platters were certainly quite heavy.

The fried dumplings were great and we all commented that we liked the filling.  I thought the boneless spare ribs were okay, I like mine to be a little bit more crispy with less sauce on it.  My egg roll was great, and all of my roommates and I thought that our entrees were delicious, considering it was cheap takeout Chinese.  My hot and spicy beef was good, but to be honest, I was so full of our appetizers that I didn’t eat too much.  I have at least two more meals out of my leftovers that I’m looking forward to eating.  All in all, I’m very happy to report that our little apartment on 89th street has found our go-to takeout Chinese restaurant.