Review: Great Wall (takeout)
UPDATE: A commenter below reported that she determined their soups are made from chicken stock. Because of this, and the general opinion below, this has been moved to the “bad restaurants” list.
The other night, Melissa was really wanting Chinese takeout; specifically “Vegetable Fried Rice”. Through a somewhat random decision, I decided to get takeout from Great Wall over on the west side of town (by EZ Pawn).
We ordered a quart of Vegetable Friced Rice, an order of “Crab cheese angles*”, and a pint of Vegetable Lo Mein.
I don’t have the menu handy at the moment, but we’ll put up the vegetarian run-down up here soon. There was a fair selection of vegetarian items. I imagine that if you wanted to make a substitution, and it was simple enough that the language barrier wasn’t a problem, you could probably do it. (I’ve had other restaurants substitute tofu for chicken on a couple items before.)
I would not recommend this restaurant (for takeout).
Additional Notes
One thing I think is worth noting is that the buffet at Great Wall is going to be not economically feasible for veg*ns, particularly on Sunday. Buffet from Mon-Sat is ~$7, but on Sunday, because of the seafood buffet items, it jumps to just under $10. The pickings are slim for entrees — Lo Mein, Fried Rice, Crab Cheese Angles, POSSIBLY Moo Goo Gai Pan also. The restaurant must understandably disperse the cost of all food on the buffet to each patron, but since we veg*ns have a limited subset to choose from, you may want to pass on the buffet and order takeout instead.
* I’m pretty sure that the Crab Cheese Angles are just cheese with seasoning — although I suppose it’s possible they contain a small amount of haddock or other processed fish meat. Does anyone know for certain? They really don’t taste sea-foody at all.
I have to say, the veggie fried rice from Great Wall was not as good as I had hoped it would be. I think my pregnant cravings got it and veggie lo mein confused.
It was really just fried rice with frozen peas and carrots.
Ok. I did some googling and “imitation crabmeat” is in fact made of fish.
Link & Link for clarification.
Thusly it should technically not be listed under vegetarian items on the menu.
I did some looking around and it looks like, in America, “Crab Rangoon” is actually “Cream Cheese Wontons”, which confirms my suspicions of content.
We’ll follow up on this by actually just asking the Great Wall if they actually contain any fish or crabmeat.
Um, I’d not recommend this particular establishment to “vegan” friends – very little in the way of vegan recipes – either from the intentional or unintentional point of view . . . .
True — this would be better suited for Vegetarians than Vegans (and that isn’t saying much
). I know Jade House (east-side) is very accommodating with vegifying orders — they’ve done Tofu-substitutions for me a number of times. I guess they get a lot of Earlham kids there!
Perhaps our future reviews should specify recommendation levels for both Vegans AND vegetarians?
Hi there!
My friend Anna Lisa linked me to this blog. I am celebrating ten years vegetarian this year and I’ve spent most of that vegan. I would appreciate future recommendation levels for Vegans and Vegetarians. Thanks so much for this site!
I also wanted to take the opportunity to add my two cents about the soups at American-Chinese places. In my experience, none of them start with a vegetarian soup broth–they start with a simple chicken broth, the stock made from boiling down the chicken parts unsuitable for all of the main courses. I was shocked and dismayed to discover this fact about eight years ago when dining at a Chinese buffet with my parents. I asked the owners about the soups after I’d had some (specifically, the Egg Drop and the Hot & Sour with tofu) and, after the usual misunderstandings about chicken broth being vegetarian, I confirmed that the base was indeed a non-vegetarian one. I have had similar experiences at many many many other American-Chinese buffet restaurants, including Great Wall and the one over by Meijer.
As a result, I would not recommend soups as part of the vegetarian menu unless you can be definitively told by the ownership that it begins with a water, soy sauce/vinegar broth. (Perhaps you have been by Great Wall, which is why you listed it above.) And because it has been my experience that most folks do not think chicken broth and vegetarianism are mutually exclusive, I would just steer clear entirely.
Thanks again for this resource!!
adrienne
Adrienne,
Thanks for the tip — I have adjusted the “restaurant menus” page and made a note of it on this post!
oh, Adrienne, good call.
I would bet money that Jade House’s tofu soup is vegan, but I think that would be the only safe Chinese-American soup around here.
I like to pretend the crab cheese angles are vegetarian, but it seems likely that they’re not. On a side note, I really enjoy cranberry rangoon (http://www.annalisagross.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/cranberry-rangoon.jpg), which is a great vegetarian version. They can also be made with vegan cream cheese, but then start to get pricey.
Jade House doesn’t have any vegetarian spring rolls, which is such a bummer. Their egg rolls are “98% vegetarian” (actual quote from JH employee), but the pork (or whatever the 2% is) totally blends in with the cabbage, so it doesn’t work for me as something to share with my meat-eating partner. Does anyone know of veg*n spring rolls in town? I think spring rolls are usually vegan, right?
I like the vegan spring rolls & dumplings in Kroger’s natural foods frozen case. That’s about it… :[ Unfortunately they regularly run $4-$5 a bag–enough to serve an enthusiastic couple once! :[
What we SHOULD do is have a spring roll making party: buy a bunch of the wrappers when they go on special at Meijer or Kroger and then just go to town with some shredded carrots, cabbage, and previously-frozen diced tofu. We can freeze and pull out for the hot oil at our leisure, and cheaply.
Hey all! Mark and I actually enjoy the Great Wall take out. We always get the same thing though-”stir fried Chinese vegetable with bean curd”. I usually get a vegetable egg roll to go with it. It never occurred to me the egg roll might be only 98% vegetarian (how horrifying) though I wonder if the sauce with the stir fry might have a bit of oyster sauce in it, but I have not asked specifically (I think I have asked about the egg roll but it has been so long ago now that I am not sure). An egg roll party sounds fun
Does someone want to organize an egg roll party? That sounds like fun! Send me details and I’ll post it up here!