Essence of China is one of those restaurants tucked inside a building—except for the sandwich board, and the stencil on the door glass, you'd never know it was there. When I hear combination plate, I think dive. And I love combination plates. But this place is quite pleasant and clean and definitely undivey, though they do have a full bar. Lunch there recently was pleasant and good—not the best Chinese food, but reasonable and fast.

I learned a few things while there. Fried wonton are what are more commonly known as Crab Rangoon. Shanghai wonton, however, are wonton, filled with shrimp and pork with a gingery dipping sauce, very tasty and quite a few of them. And, stay away from the combo plates! I got Plate B, aka egg foo yong, pork fried rice, and fried shrimp. The fried shrimp were great, but the pork fried rice neither tasted nor appeared to contain any pork. The egg foo yong was deep-fried and covered with a yellow gravy.

Everyone else at the table must have gotten the memo, because they all ordered off the Specials menu and did fine. An order of Tofu and Vegetables came to the table as Shrimp and Vegetables, but was otherwise fine: shrimp cooked appropriately with an interesting array of fresh veg in a white sauce. General Tso's Chicken was rated an 8.5 of 10, sweet and spicey as expected. The Sesame Chicken was lovely but not really very sesamey or similar to other dishes of the name. And Kung Pao Chicken was solid, filling and good, everything diced into cubes.

I wouldn't go out of my way for this, but 5 of us ate lunch for about $30, which is nothing to scoff at.

Sickie food in my household is amerochinese, the unchallenging chinese food of our youth. But, the things you really want when you're sick: hot & sour soup, eggrolls, maybe some kung pao chicken—well, why is it so difficult to find decent food close to home?

The Orient is not the sort of place I'd recommend you eat at. It's odd. The bar is bright and undistinguished, and the dining room is essentially a long hall with booths on both sides. And rails in front of the booths, just, I guess, so customers don't get out of line. Or something.

Take-out is a mixed bag. Hot & sour soup is actually spicy, and while no one will confuse it with Wong's King Seafood's or Sungari, it's not bad (and the best, sigh, I've had from NE). They show a bit of care with their foodstuffs: a garlicky dipping sauce for potstickers, crab puffs actually taste a little like crab and contain scallions, and deep fried items are separated from their sauces (dude, so they're crispy still!). Still, the entries were no great shakes and may well have come from Panda Compress for all I know.

I think all reviews of Wong's King are obligated to begin thusly:

There are other Wong's King, owned by the same family, but the only one you have to take seriously is Wong's King Seafood on SE Division in the new Chinatown. The ones in Sellwood, Sandy and Estacada? You'll get a decent American Chinese meal. But if you are looking for serious high-end Cantonese, get thee to WKS.

Dim sum, a competitive sport.

Word to the wise: have your whole party there when you're seated: if you hold seats for your flakey friends who don't show, you'll be personas non grata in the dining room. I know this sadly from experience. You can get away with this stuff at Fong Chong, but not here.

Within 10 minutes of being seated, every table in the large banquet hall is full. And the carts have already begun. I would have loved to have one of those picture menus so I could accurately name what we had. But everything we had was really good.

Some of the things we had:
-shumai
-shrimp dumplings
-chicken paws (feet)
-congee
-BBQ duck
-sesame balls
-han sui gok (pork in sweet sticky rice then deepfried)
-sticky rice in banana leaves
-spareribs
-ginger chicken
-humbow
-wu gok (mashed taro in sweet sticky rice then deepfried)
-shrimp dumplings with chives
-BBQ pork pastry
-shrimp paste on sugar cane
-deepfried shrimp balls
-shrimp in rice noodle
I admit being too greedy with the eating to take notes.

Whenever we needed something, be it a fork, 10 glasses of water, a glass of 7up, more shrimp in rice noodle, soy sauce and chili oil, we just asked one of the cart ladies, or one of the staffers gliding around the room, and our wish appeared in a matter of moments.

So we ate to a Mr Cresote level, all of it delectable, and for ten people, it was $86. So it was $10 plus change per person.

Eating off the dinner menu is a little more intimidating.

A great start to a meal is ordering a BBQ plate (we've had the duck, pork and duchess chicken and they were all good) and some soup. Even old standbys like wonton and hot and sour soups are really something altogether better.

We ordered several seafood dishes, one a suggestion and another a memory of another meal at WKS, and they were both very good—not what we had expected, but something better entirely.

Most entries ring in within a couple bucks of $10 and portions are generous. For $50 including tip and a beer, two of us ate to bursting, and brought some food home.

Other Press:

• Hidden in Plain Sight: Wong's King Seafood
• Portland Food and Drink
• Royal Dumplings: A new Southeast Portland outpost of Chinese cuisine does dim sum right
  Nancy Rommelmann, Willamette Week, 1/26/2005