The Chinese food challenge: Mr. Lee’s Asian Gourmet

Just past the roadway roundabout at Routes 73 and 29 in Zieglerville is .

With a lengthy menu, including plenty of entrées for those preferring their meals auspiciously spicy. Mr. Lee’s also provides a selection of lightly steamed foods for feasting in the tune of more conscientious consumerism.

The gao roll, which packs a poignant punch when dipped in sweetly quenching duck sauce, encases the center-ingredient of crab in an outer layer heavily crisped and fried along with hints of wonton, cabbage and the slight intimation of ginger.

This appetizer, while in need of a few chomps per section with its considerable size, takes on an appearance well worth admiration by a food-aimed mind. A fellow lunchtime diner asked me how it was, and then placed his own gao roll order to go.

Still in the seafood category, penned as baby shrimp with cashews on the menu, this dish included the substitution of the bigger-sibling-sized shrimp, thickly tossed with garlic in its fork-stirring sauce. By way of a few jumps of the tongue, vegetables share space with not only cashews, but water chestnuts, cuts of red pepper, whole peapods, slivers of zucchini and, of course, the usual separate bowl of white rice to initiate equilibrium with the dish’s potent spin of flavor.

For the braver palate types, there is squid with black bean sauce. If there were a blindfolded taste test, the dish could almost be considered chicken with black bean sauce. The oceanic accent accompanies onions, cabbage, sections of carrot, halved baby corn, asparagus spears, zucchini, green pepper shards and the crunchy tops of broccoli.

 To calm down a bit from the bulk of filling meal portions, a good number of sips from a tall mug of steaming green tea, easy on the insides and ultimately balancing, pulls fittingly at rounding out food time before the bill arrives.

Find Mr. Lee’s Asian Gourmet at 1134 Gravel Pike in Zieglerville, PA 19492 and in the PerkiomenValleyPatch.com directory.