Awesome Eats @ China King

China King is one of these places where the food is fresh and made to your "like-King," where the amount of spices and sweetness can be altered to your tastes and where you can leave out or add vegetables to your main ingredient. Owner Cindy Ou, her husband Chen and brother Sam came to America from Fujian, China, 14 years ago armed with the knowledge and experience of Chinese cookery. This family is totally focused on, and committed to, preparing great food.

The garlic sauce is a secret sauce that Chen Ou makes daily in the small in-line restaurant locatednext to Lowe’s in Massaponax Shopping Center. It's not too spicy but stil has a kick. This sauce is delicious in the shrimp, beef, chicken and pork dishes. The shrimp with garlic sauce has snow peas, mushrooms, green peppers and onions bathed in a garlicky, slightly sweet and a little bit spicy coating, just perfect.

China King's garlic shrimp are large puffs of hand-dipped shrimp in wet batter and fried golden, tender and light. The sweet-n-sour chicken is fresh white chicken meat instead of the dark meat often used in other establishments and is a favorite of some of their loyal customers.

Tofu lovers can rejoice in the fact that Cindy Ou offers soy bean protein cooked crispy, firm and soft and in so many fabulous dishes such as Sesame, General Tso’s, Hunan and Szechuan. General Tso’s sauce can be adjusted to the sweetness level of the diner allowing for individualtaste preferences. The fresh mushrooms are cut as are the broccoli flowers and stir fried in the wok before being coated in a rich brown sauce in a dish called, what else, Mushrooms and Broccoli in Brown Sauce.

Another popular dish is the Black Pepper Chicken and it is easy to see why, it is loaded with tender chunks of white chicken meat, green peppers and onions that have been coated with the black pepper sauce then seared in the hot wok. The menu is about as long as the Great Wall of China so breaking away from the norm and trying something different is easy at China King.

Chen makes a sauce for the chicken wings called "Mumba" sauce. It was developed with the help of a customer who was in search of it. Now customers order it by the container and use it for dipping and coating everything from eggrolls to crab rangoon.

China King is one of those places where the décor could be, well, more. The lighting could be less bright in the dining in area and the place could use a little ambience. But if you haveever been to China you will relate, if you haven’t, then this is exactly how the tiny food stalls operate. All of the attention and concern is in creating great food made in front of you and less on aesthetics. Awesome Eats is only about bringing attention to awesome foods, not awesome décor. Food trucks are exploding in popularity in foodie cites throughout the United States and the creations these chefs on four wheels are offering up can blow your taste buds away. Food, it’s all about the food, baby!

There are many Chinese restaurants with the name China King, but there is only one in Spotsylvania County and they are located in a shopping strip next to Lowe’s at 10211 Southpoint Pkwy. in Spotsylvania, Virginia. When you go for their awesome eats, tell Cindy you read about her great food in Fredericksburg Patch.