The Weekly Entrée 10-25
Charming Garden
Rating: 
Years ago, ethnic restaurants focused on a specific cuisine: Japanese, Chinese, Thai, etc. Recently, there has been a move toward restaurants combining a variety of regional items. In the case of Charming Garden, it is Chinese and Japanese with a few Thai dishes available.
Another recent movement is known as New Japanese and New Chinese that involves a diversion from traditional recipes, fusing different cultures and flavors.
At Charming Garden, items range from traditional to modern offerings, such as the Yellow Tail Guacamole roll. While I would have expected a combination of regional flavors, perhaps Japanese and Thai, I was shocked to see Japanese and Mexican.
They seem to be opposite ends of the spectrum, raw fish to cooked chicken. This East-meets-West combination shows how worldly our tastes have become.
Our first dish was miso soup. This is oftentimes a clear broth with little flavor. We were pleasantly surprised to discover a cloudy soup with a thicker-than-normal consistency and a rich flavor.
The cause of this was tiny bits of chicken with spices. This added a very nice dimension differentiating it from the usual soup.
We then selected a sushi roll named Amazing Roll. This was eel and avocado wrapped in rice with spicy tuna, tempura flakes and tobiko layered on top. This well-balanced combination of ingredients resulted in a pleasant integration of flavors and textures. A special chef’s sauce highlighted the flavor of the roll. The name of the roll was very appropriate.
Of course we had to try the Yellow tail Guacamole roll to see how the spices in Guacamole would impact the Japanese roll. It was a traditional yellow yail and scallion roll topped with guacamole and jalapeno tobiko served with a Hawaiian tropical fruit sauce, again loaded with different tastes and textures.
There was spiciness from the roll that mingled well with the sweet fruit sauce. Another unusual item equally as enjoyable was the jade pearl — crab meat with tobiko mixed in a Japanese-style mayonnaise wrapped in partially peeled avocado and served with a special wasabi sauce. It looked like a small beach ball with light and dark green stripes. Eating this was most easily done by picking it up. Fortunately, wet towelettes were available for cleaning our hands.
From the Chinese menu we sampled the crab ragoon — crab and cream cheese in a fried wonton. Each of these items was pleasing to the eye and taste buds.
For entrées we sampled the seafood with XO sauce, sliced lamb with ginger and scallions, and the chicken and shrimp with honey walnuts.
The latter was shrimp and chunks of chicken breast dipped in lotus flour, lightly fried then sautéed with fresh mushrooms and red pepper in honey brown sauce with honey walnuts. The dishes had a very delicate flavor.
Dessert was a “yellow bug” exemplifying how Japanese cuisine combines art and food. A tempura fried banana was served on the peel with part of the peel rolled and topped with maraschino cherries resembling eyes.
With many unique dishes that meld cultures and cuisines, this restaurant rates an AHHHHH (5) out of 5 AHs.
E-mail Jim Clark at weeklyentree@verizon.net.
