ORCHIDS GARDEN
For most of the ’90s, the sign in front of this Chinese restaurant on West Sahara proclaimed in bold letters: “Chinese Food To Go In Rear.” It never failed to make us laugh…
Since then, this pagoda-like, free-standing building has gone through several ownership changes, but has been Orchids Garden for some time now. At dinner, the place is deader than ELV’s prospects for marital bliss, but things heat up considerably when the sun is shining.
That’s because daytime is dim sum time here. And even if the dumplings, buns, veggies and noodles aren’t in the same league as Ping Pang Pong’s, you can still get your cheong fun freak on with a fairly fine fluent of food.
Don’t expect any surprises from the shumai, har gau, char siu su, or cha siu bao, but all are competently made and delivered with alacrity by the ladies (why is it always ladies?) pushing the carts around.
Dim sum means “to touch the heart” in Cantonese, but the words have become shorthand for the little bites (always served in threes because of that number’s lucky qualities), and small plates taken with tea at a typical Southern Chinese midday meal..
FYI: The best dim sum ELV has ever had was at the MiddleRow Restaurant of the Kowloon Hotel on that peninsula of Hong Kong, where they made all of their doughs and noodles by hand, and you ordered off a picture menu (not a tourist menu, but a Chinese menu with glossy photos), not from carts, and silk-robed, beautiful hostesses served them to you, and the dumplings and noodles were so light, and their fillings so intense with whatever seafood, odd-ball vegetables, ground pork, garlic, ginger and onions filled them that we felt we had died and gone to heaven, and we would’ve spent the rest of our lives just eating off that menu and dying happily at one of those tables if The Food Gal® hadn’t forced us to leave and waste time with things like shopping and sight seeing.
ORCHIDS GARDEN
5485 West Sahara Ave.
Las Vegas, NV 89146
702.631.3839
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.
January 9th, 2009 at 1:46 am
I used to eat here all the time, until my dining companion bit into a dumpling and out came a cockroach.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:34 am
wow. thats a game changer!
January 9th, 2009 at 9:20 am
ELV wonders two things: Was management informed? And, how long ago was that unfortunate incident?
The first question is because we’re always curious about how certain types of restaurants react to such complaints.
The latter question is important because this place has had multiple owners over the past ten years, and seems to have settled in with its current management over the last three.
January 9th, 2009 at 10:45 am
orchids and PPP are the dim sum go-to places for the roomie and i. we hit dim-sum at least 2/month. btw – a few months back, i seem to recall that orchids was temporarily closed for health issues.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
ELV, quit giving The Food Gal such a hard time! You’re old enough to remember these sayings:
The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and a woman’s place is …. in the mall.
The photos look very good, particularly the spicy salt shrimp with the heads on. What time did you go eat there? 11:00 a.m.? Before? And how big is the place? 100? 200?
Would you compare Orchids Garden & Ping Pang Pong? Is one place less greasy than the other? More flavor? Fresher? Details, please.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
It was over a year ago, and they took 1/2 off the meal, if I recall correctly.