"It #@%&@!' sucked," said one patron we happened to be dining near, although we are not sure if he was talking about the restaurant or "The Bodyguard," which he had just seen, we think. At least we know he didn't just see "Army of Darkness."
We should have known. They had framed photographs of the dishes in the window. It was in a mini-mall (but, then, so is everything else in LaVerne and in the bulk of outer Los Angeles). There wasn't any kanji on the menu, although a full page of it was dedicated to a comprehensive beer listing. But we were hungry, and it was late, and one more excuse would be perfect to round out this sentence.
Beggars' Banquet's reputation has recently been tainted by a vocal faction's suggestion that we don't know the first thing about food. Well, we don't. However, this week we didn't even need our no-longer-hard-and-fast Unrequested Water Refill guideline to know this was the perfect place to slam. Water refills, plentiful as they were, just couldn't compensate for the general lack of flavor characteristic of the Chun King canning and boxing process of which Mandarin Orange mysteriously reminded us.
Not that bad Chinese food is an intrinsic quality of LaVerne. Phoenix Garden was...uh...ah...pant...pant...mmm...ohh...groovy. Ahhhh.... Mmmmm, chocolate-dipped fortune cookies. Ask for another set of chopsticks, baby, let's do it again.
Ahem...well, uh, anyway, so this place was kinda flaccid. There was a glimmer of hope when the waitress carted out a flaming tribute to the Gods of the Foil-Wrapped Bean Curd.
But, it could have been meat, maybe. We figured we were supposed to warm them up a little on the iron inferno in the center of the appetizer tray, but the waitress was kind enough to reprimand us by producing a weathered black whip, tearing off her blouse to reveal a slick leather brassiere, reverting to her native German tounge and lashing our unsuspecting knuckles with primal screams of "Es fraut mich sehr sie kennen zu lernen!"
Well, actually, all she really did was crack our cheap, balsa-wood chopsticks that never split on the "perferation" over our wrists.
Ok, ok, no whips, no chopstick-cracking. She just kind of knocked the foil packets off the grill and kindly demonstrated our stupidity to us. The entrees failed to be warm in at least three ways. First, they just weren't very warm. Second, the just weren't very spicy. Third, like mathematics, they just weren't very sexy. Fourth, well, we only promised three ways, so we feel mostly unobligated to complete this thought.
We ordered Kung Pao Chicken, but it wasn't even Kung Phizzle. Hence the water, as pleasantly ubiquitous as it was, wasn't even that necessary. The vegetables were good, but that's relative to Marriot, so you make of it what you will. The rice was fine, the hot and sour soup was pretty good, and the chicken chou mein was about as disappointing as the Kung Drizzle.
The seating arrangements, as much as we like to be thrown off gaurd, were just too weird for us. The booths were clearly not designed to contain any whole number of persons larger than two, yet they appeared empty if less than four bodies occupied the sorta safari-satori stripey bean-bag like matter vacuum seating devices that uniformly lowered everyone at the table to a height such that one's chin rested comfortably in their luke warm bowl of soup.
Now, we don't want any more crap about "you guys like everything," and other related drivel. We are hardcore, professionalesque reviewers who aren't afraid to upset any of our current or potential advertisers. You respect us now, don't you. Swell.
Although the servings were adequately large and nicely priced, at about eight dollars per person, we cannot unreservedly recommend Mandarin Orange to the greater Claremont College community.
Mandarin Orange is located at 2086 Foothill Boulevard, in La Verne, well beyond that still-disconcerting boat thing.