Bamboo Garden

Bamboo Garden

625 W. Ben White

(512) 444-6022

I've been looking around for a new place to get a good Sesame Chicken lunch, and today my search brought me to Bamboo Garden in south Austin.  I cannot really claim to like Chinese food, but I love Sesame Chicken, and Hot and Sour Soup.  I've tried the Magic Wok and Sun Hing on the north side of the UT campus, and they are okay, but not really good enough to get my repeat patronage...at least not very often.  My favorite is China Wall, in Round Rock, but that is a pretty far drive from downtown, when I am looking for lunch.

I tend to order to go, because I rarely care for sitting by myself...in any restaurant.  I ordered the Sesame Chicken lunch, with Hot and Sour Soup.  It also came with an egg roll, and two fried wontons.  I called ahead and the order was waiting for me and without a drink it was $7.04, so quite reasonable.

Everything was very hot.  The egg roll and wontons were in a small paper bag within the plastic grocery bag, and not in the hot food container.  That is one point to Bamboo Garden.  It is a terrible idea to pack anything crispy in with a pile of hot chicken with sauce and rice.  If you carry it back home, your crispy egg roll is now a steamed egg roll.  Yuck!

In the standard styrofoam plate was a good pile of Sesame Chick, a large scoop of rice, and three or four broccoli florets.  Another point to Bamboo Garden, for leaving the broccoli on the side.  I can always push an unwanted bit of broccoli to the side while eating, but I get annoyed when some of the delicious sauce is clinging to the broccoli and I don't get to mix it into my rice.

The Sesame Chicken was well cooked, not perfect, but better than a few I've had.  The sauce was a little spicier than most places.  Nothing wrong with that, it gave it a more distinctive taste, and it wasn't overly sweet, which can be a problem sometimes.

The rice was fried, and one point against Bamboo Garden for not giving me an option when I called.  The rice was nicely prepared, but was somewhat unusual in not seeming to have anything but rice and seasoning.  There were no vegetables.  I didn't mind.

The eggroll was nice and crispy and tasty as well.  The wontons were unusual.  They were just two flat fried wonton wrappers.  I'd never seen that before.  They were sort of dry and tasteless...well, not completely.  They just didn't have any sort of seasoning on them.  They were okay, sort of like a piece of bread to push things around with.

The Hot and Sour Soup was excellent.  I'd almost go back again just for that.  I think I would have to rate it just below the Hot and Sour soup at China Wall, but not by much.

So, the conclusion?  The Sesame Chicken was good, the rice was good, the egg roll was good and the Hot and Sour Soup was excellent.  I won't mind going back.