Like many Vero aficionados of Chinese cuisine, we have long lamented the fact that there are no really good Chinese restaurants within a couple of hours’ drive.
But if you have no immediate plans to fly to the West Coast, or even New York, and are in desperate need of a Chinese food fix, your best local option is the Shandong Noodle House.
This tiny restaurant, tucked away in the Three Avenues Shopping Center on Miracle Mile, offers a variety of Cantonese, Hunanese, Sichuanese and Chinese-American dishes, as well as those based on the cooking methods of Shandong, East China’s coastal province.
On a couple of recent visits, we sampled several of the dishes pretty much found in every Chinese restaurant by way of comparing the Shandong’s version to those found elsewhere.
The Shandong’s wonton soup (small $3.95, large $5.95) is clearly the best around. The broth, while sometimes a bit salty, has a nice aroma and contains thin-skinned wontons stuffed with juicy pork as well as bok choy. We have the wonton soup most every time we eat there, but their other homemade soups are very good as well.
Our frequent dining companion is a lover of moo shu pork, a dish that some say originated in Shandong, so we certainly could not omit that from our sample.
Moo shu pork consists of shredded pork and scrambled eggs, stir fried with a variety of vegetables that vary from one recipe to another. Along with the pork, moo shu “pancakes,” steamed thin wrappers made of flour, are brought to the table along with a small dish of hoisin sauce to be spread .on the pancakes. The pork is then wrapped in the pancakes to be eaten by hand.
We actually thought the Shandong’s moo shu pork ($10.95) was one of the better renditions of this Chinese-American dish that we have had anywhere.
We were less enthused, however, about the kung pao chicken ($10.95) – another Chinese-American dish of chunks of chicken stir fried with peanuts and peppers. The Shandong’s version had a relatively light sauce, but it was also very light on the peanuts, and lacked the spicy kick generally associated with this dish.
The sautéed baby bok choy with garlic ($10.95) was excellent, as are the Shandong’s vegetables generally.
While a number of other Chinese restaurant staples are on the menu, we also have tried some of the oodles of noodles offered at the Shandong (Noodle House, after all, is part of its name).
The Shandong boasts that it makes its noodles in house, and among the specialties are udon noodles, thick and tubular noodles made from wheat, flour and salt. We ordered these with beef, and the noodles were chewy and soft, standing up very nicely to the beef sauce.
On other occasions, we have sampled the stir fried lo mein noodles, the chow fun noodles, and the ultra-thin crispy egg noodles, which are pan fried and resemble a fragile bird nest.
Of these, we liked the chow fun noodles the best, and while you can have any of these with chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, seafood or vegetables, our choice would be the very nice slices of tender beef or pork. Noodle dishes generally range in price from $9.95 to $13.95.
Judging from several recent visits, the Shandong’s business is pretty evenly divided between those eating in its small, very plain dining area (six booths, two tables) and those picking up take-out.
But either way, whether you dine in or take out, opt for noodles or other dishes, the Shandong in three years has established itself as the best place to go in Vero for Chinese.
I welcome your comments, and encourage you to send feedback to me at [email protected].
The reviewer is a beachside resident who dines anonymously at restaurants at the expense of Vero Beach 32963.
