China Delight

Portion size was good, egg roll was good, fried rice was better then average, sesame chicken was crunchy and flavor was great, but boneless spare ribs where too fatty and also too burnt for my taste. Overall price for two combos was about $ 15 which I find fair. I would order again just not spare ribs next time.

China Delight doesn’t look like much from the outside, as it is situated in a strip plaza that could use some TLC, but they make the best Chinese food of the 4 places in Smyrna.
We order Chinese food roughly once every 6 to 7 weeks and what keeps us coming back to China Delight is their crab rangoons. I’m not sure what it is about theirs specifically but my family enjoys them quite a bit. The food is always good and never greasy like it is at other places. The woman who answers the phone and works the counter is friendly to a degree. I like that I can see the cooks preparing my order from the counter as it gives me some assurance that the place is clean.

Once upon a sticky summer evening in the small hamlet of Smyrna, which is situated like a slumbering swampland slug among the idyllic marshes of middle Delaware, my wife and I decided to dine out. Not wanting to feast upon the fat-​ridden fare found in fast food joints nor to be served some down-​home pig slop at a local feeding trough resembling a diner, we opted to try for Chinese food. Now, Smyrna as a town is notable in that businesses of one type tend to congregate together like flies drawn to the cold, blue light of a bug zapper. There are, for example, three different stores selling automotive parts, all situated within one square mile of one another.
In addition, there are four Chinese take-​out restaurants in Smyrna, three of which are also located within this selfsame one square mile. Like the automotive parts stores, there are few differences among these four restaurants apart from their logos. China Delight, however, does manage to stand out from the crowd a bit: it has the least-​objectionable Chinese food, and the food is probably closest to authentic Asian cuisine, much in the same way that grey is the closest thing that people with red-​green colorblindness can perceive to the actual colors. I may be selling the experience short, as the food is actually somewhat decent: the Sweet and Sour chicken bits are crisp, not sodden; the fried rice doesn’t have the dry taste that comes from sitting for hours beneath a heat-​lamp, and the mixed vegetables have the crunchy texture that results when they’re not overcooked.
This strip-​mall establishment occupies two storefronts. One contains the front counter and a few chairs for people awaiting take-​out; the other, connected storefront has several seats and tables which are ostensibly for people wanting to dine in. Since the restaurant featured such seating arrangements, I assumed that it would be acceptable for my wife and I to sit down and eat our meal. Lo, how we were mistaken! Perhaps the words with which we expressed our desire for a sit-​down meal fell outside the limited English vocabulary of the staff; perhaps the staff was simply shocked by what is apparently such an unusual request. Either way, we must have confused the staff as we placed our take-​out bags on the table to eat at the restaurant. They awkwardly provided us with plates and plastic utensils with which to eat our food, which had been conveniently wrapped in a paper take-​out bag, the opening of which was rolled and stapled shut.
At the end of the meal, I was confused about whether or not we should leave a tip, since we hadn’t technically been «served.» I believe I left a token amount underneath one of the plates as I wondered when the staff last had to wash one of these dishes. The staff wasn’t quite sure how to bid us farewell as we walked out of the restaurant. I suppose I shouldn’t expect everyone to enthusiastically shout «WASABI!» from behind the counter like I’m in a Budweiser commercial, but my unrealistic expectations notwithstanding, I do think they could have been a bit more hospitable. Should my wife and I want something quick and local, we’ll certainly order food here again, but I believe this time we’ll grab our take-​out and scurry out of the restaurant like rodents with morsels of precious cheese clenched in our little paws.