Jason here. Back in college one of the things I really
enjoyed was ordering some Chinese takeout. It was simple, delicious, and cheap
meal. The best part was that it always came with enough food for left overs
once or even twice more throughout the week. Lately I have been getting a
little sick of having sandwiches every day for lunch and wanted a little
something else. It also happened that I have really been craving some Chinese
takeout. With those two things combined, there was never going to be a better
time for us to go searching for a local gluten free Chinese takeout restaurant.
The problem, as I am sure many of you have already
discovered, is most Asian food contains soy-sauce in one form or another. While
you can buy gluten free soy sauce, it is more expensive, and so it takes some
searching to find a gluten free Asian restaurant, and is even rarer for a
takeout place. As a quick aside, soy sauce is one of the first items I
accidentally ate which got me sick. Of course gluten free restaurants like
Long, and Square Lotus exist which we have already reviewed. However they were more
sit down places, and I wanted takeout.
We found a little place not too far away in Redmond called, Asiana Bistro. They
are a Chinese, Japanese, and Korean takeout restaurant.
The first thing you will most likely be greeted with when
you walk in Asiana Bistro is the owner. She has both peanut allergies and
gluten allergies so she knows what is what around keeping a gluten free
kitchen. She was extremely friendly, giving tons of suggestions on what to try,
offering to cook up anything special we could ask for, and making sure to
inform us that absolutely anything could be made vegetarian. She even went into
the back and got a container of the soy sauce they used to show us what brand
they used and suggested where we might be able to pick some up ourselves. For
those wondering, she mentioned Uwajimaya would almost certainly have it in
stock. I don’t think I have ever been greeted by someone with a more warm
personality then her, and I could as I watched other customers come in and
leave that they all had the same experience I did.
For my meal, I ordered the same thing I have always ordered
from Asian takeout, the General Tso’s Chicken. General Tso’s is one of those
items which can come in a variety of different ways. I have had General Tso’s
come swimming in sauce and almost soup like, to extremely dry. I have had it
extremely spicy, and also very bland.
The General Tso’s at Asiana Bistro was fantastic. It came on
a large plate with more than enough for an extra meal which I promptly took
into lunch the following week. The General Tso’s was just as spicy as I liked
it. I tend to like things spicy, and found myself occasionally reaching for a
drink after eating one of those red pepper things. However, the owner informed
me they have a scale of 1-10 for spicy, and if I am remembering correctly my
dish was only a 6. The 10 she said was something you don’t even want to think
about. So if you are looking for something with an extreme kick, go ahead and
ask for a dish with a spicy level of 10. The chicken was fried just perfectly,
and had just enough sauce to give flavor, but no overpower the entire dish. It
had large pieces of green pepper, carrots, and onions which did much to add to
the flavor. The white rice on the side was cooked just how I like it, that
sweet spot between mushy and undercooked.
Kayleigh here. I hemmed and hawed for the longest time when
I came face to face with the menu. Usually, wanting to go vegetarian at a
restaurant will end up leaving you with 3, maybe 4 items to choose from. So
when I found out that any of their meat-based dishes could be substituted for
tofu, I thought: what dish have I always wanted to try? Eventually, with the
owner’s help, I settled on Mongolian Tofu. Perfectly spicy, fresh, fried tofu,
accompanied with colorful green onions and hot white rice- I was seriously pleased!
Although, next time, I may take a page from Jason’s book, and order some
General Tso’s tofu!
To wrap this up, if you live near Redmond and are looking
for some Asian takeout I cannot recommend this place highly enough. They will
cook anything to order, make anything vegetarian, are well priced, and
completely gluten free.
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