Each week in 'Knockers' we order from a different delivery restaurant, grading its efficiency and food.
Delivery quote time: 30-40 minutes Actual delivery time: 35 minutes Tolerating my annoying "no-oil" request: 20 Ignoring my annoying request: -10 Grease factor: -15 Mistaking my "no oil request" for "more salt, please": -18 Extensive menu with Thai, Japanese and Chinese offerings: 50 Actually making it over in 35 minutes during rush hour: 25 Getting to my door right on time despite not having the correct gate code: 12 Finding a free egg roll in our bag: 6 Hidden Fees: -8
Total Score: 61 Lover's Egg Roll, the Lemmon Avenue location, can be inconsistent. Unfortunately for them, it chose to veer towards the bad on the day I decided to write it up for Knockers. I once attended a dinner party at PF Chang's, where, inevitably, the topic of my food blog came up during conversation. This is tricky territory because some people genuinely want to get my advice on where to eat, while others just want to prove me wrong. There was a gentleman in the latter category who had just moved to Uptown Dallas and inquired where he could find decent Chinese takeout. I suggested he try Lover's Egg Roll because I found it to be the best out of all the lackluster options available in the area, to which he responded, "That place is awful." He then proceeded to conclude that I must be a terrible food writer whilst simultaneously praising the "awesomeness" that is PF Chang's kung pao chicken.
In his defense, when one catches Lover's Egg Roll on an off day, it's easy to be frightened away from future visits. The main complaint I've heard is the grease factor. Chinese takeout is already notoriously greasy, but Lover's Egg Roll takes it up a notch, hence my annoying request for no oil. There have been times when they would actually acquiesce, but this time wasn't one of them.
Trying to diversify, I ordered away from my norm, opting for the Thai spicy beef flat noodles, basil chicken, moo shu pork, and a cup of wonton soup.
I can't complain about Lover's Egg Roll's delivery time. They always arrive ahead of the quote time, and even this time during rush hour, they surprised me.
It's a bad sign when the starter is greasy. It's an even worse sign that the starter is a soup. Oily broth wasn't the soup's only egregious offense: The wontons were puny, a fact made even more obvious by the huge cup of broth in which they swam. Basil chicken, traditionally a spicy Thai dish, had huge slices of jalapeno as its heat agent, a very untraditional move. For that matter, the Thai spicy beef flat noodles, the most tolerable of all the dishes, also had an obscene amount of jalapenos. I would have preferred they use a different chili pepper.
Lastly, I ventured over to the moo shu, definitely the worst part of the whole meal. When my boyfriend, lover of all things sodium chloride and porcine, says something is salty, it has probably surpassed the point of salty. This perplexed me because how does one ruin by over-salting a dish that is 80 percent water? Think about it: Moo shu is mostly cabbage, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots.
I didn't know with what I was most disappointed; that I had been starving and was on the verge of throwing out food or that I had been proven wrong by a smug know-it-all who thinks PF Chang's kung pao chicken is good Chinese.
