Mac’s Meals

By James McElwee ’10
THE ROUNDUP

China Chili is a fairly popular Chinese restaurant located on 3rd Street, just south of Osborn.

China Chili offers a very large menu, with lots of good choices.

With a menu the size of China Chili’s you can get a lot of overlap; however, it seems that everything meshes well together.

One dish, Sichuan prawns, which are jumbo shrimp battered and fried then tossed with a spicy garlic sauce, is really quite good.

Another dish, Sichuan beef, that has the same preparation and sauce of the Sichuan prawns, but manages to have a style and flavor of its own.  So while there may be some overlap, the proteins manage to make them a whole other dish.

The meals at China Chili can be slightly expensive for your high school student; most dishes average around $10-15 during their dinner hours.

One saving grace though is that everything in their dinner seating is served family style.  Large portions are served in the middle to accommodate sharing, so two dishes can easily feed four people and create a good group atmosphere

They also have a lunch-time special, perfect for Friday afternoons after school.

The lunch menu features a somewhat limited selection, but they are all the most popular, and thus better-tasting, items on the menu.  You get a cup of the soup of the day, a vegetable egg roll and steamed rice with your entrée, all for around $8.

One important caveat is that their lunch menu is not served family style.

However, China Chili makes its living off of lunch-time turnover, so they may seem to rush you a little bit.

All in all, for a place with as many chances for things to go wrong as China Chili has, it has a lot of good menu items.

The sizzling black pepper chicken, which literally sizzles when it is brought to the table, is a delicious combination of white meat chicken, onions and peppers in a black pepper sauce.

While the dish is delicious, there are some bites that taste more like black pepper than others, which can become a little overwhelming at times.

Two of their staple dishes, orange and lemon chicken, are really good.  The orange chicken is spicier than the lemon chicken, and they both have a good citrus taste that is not too overwhelming.

For a menu with more tasty dishes than you would believe, China Chili receives 3.5 out of 5.