The following “CHEW THAT!” column originally appeared in “The Courier-Times” and / or “The Shelbyville News”. Check their websites for further information.
“CHEW THAT”
Corner Cuisine
Chinese and Japanese Restaurant
Blaise Doubman
In case you had not already heard, let me inform you that there is a new Chinese and Japanese restaurant in Middletown! Where? In the building of the, now closed, Corner Tavern. Located at 694 Locust Street, right in the heart of Middletown. They are open 6 days a week. Tuesday through Thursday 10:30-10:00, Friday and Saturday 10:30-11:00 and Sunday 11:00-10:00. Closed Mondays. They offer dine in or take out. This place literally has anything and everything that you can imagine in the Chinese and or Japanese culture when it comes to their realm of food.
At this fairly new establishment, everything is clean and well maintained. The staff is super friendly and the wait time not bad at all. For a table or your food. When I went I had their egg drop soup with their WonTon chips. The soup was super hot and really delicious. It had a similar taste to other egg drop soups and was, of course, best eaten hot. If I told you that the soup had a gelatin like texture would you be familiar with that? Of course, any and all people who love egg drop soup look for that particular texture in their soups and this one had it. It was delicious and had good flavor. I was missing a little of the chopped green onion, or scallion, on top but it was still good!
I also had their General Tso’s chicken, fried rice and a pork egg roll. The General Tso’s chicken was really good but not as spicy as I would have thought. The sauce to the chicken had a thick, savory taste but there was hardly any spice at all to it and I found that a welcome change. The chicken was moist and tender. The breading crisp and like I said, the sauce just enough flavor. The fried rice was good too and unlike any fried rice I had had before. There were no vegetables or eggs in the rice, just a sauce of some kind that was actually fried into the rice. Which I also found to be a welcome change that I was not expecting. The pork egg roll was good but rather on the small end. The filling was rolled tight and the meat was flavorful.
I also tried their crab rangoon which might have been my favorite thing there. It was served with some type of purple sauce that really took the flavors over the top. And get this, you get eight as a serving and they are large! Yes, eight! And the thing that really impressed me about these were that, yes, they did have actual crab in them! So many places do not. Panda Express? Nope. They do not try and hide it either. They call theirs simple “cream cheese rangoons”. The filling in the ones I was served was flavorful and pillow like. The outer crust, simply crunchy.
Last but not least, I tried their vegetable lo mein which was delicious! The vegetables were tender and y et crisp and the noodles oily and flavorful. The portion sizes were very large and I ended up taking about half of mine home, to go. They offer so many delicious things that when you go in, you may get overwhelmed, so I would recommend visiting their website or their Facebook page and taking a look at their menu. Their website is cornercuisinetogo.com
They offer dumplings, fried Chinese donuts, wonton soup, miso soup, all the different flavors and styles of fried rice you can think of, tofu options, pad Thai, chow mei fun, sweet and sour chicken, kung pao chicken, Szechuan chicken, Mongolian chicken, pepper steak, all kinds of seafood including shrimp and scallops, hibachi, so much sushi including nigiri and sashimi, classic roll, deep fried roll, raw rolls and more. They also offer bento boxes and kids meals.
Their lunch and dinner specials are daily. Lunch is served until 3:30 and is served with fried rice and a free soda, pork egg roll or choice of soup. Dinner is served with fried rice and pork egg roll. Lunch special is $7.00 and the dinner special is $9.00. Everything very well priced.
If you are looking to help support a new business in your local area and want your fix of delicious Chinese or Japanese food, please consider checking out Corner Cuisine.