One of our favorite places to walk to for lunch (that is, when laziness doesn't get the best of us) is Liliya's China Bistro, located on 2nd Street between Main and Spring. It serves "Americanized" Chinese food... well, something you would expect from a Chinese bistro. Personally, I've never really been into Chinese food not being authentic, but this restaurant serves flavorful dishes at decent prices for lunch. We haven't tried their dinner menu, which is probably something we should do one night if we stay late at work. Here are a few pictures of the restaurant's first floor:
For their lunch specials, they offer a large selection of typical Chinese-American dishes such as Sweet and Sour Pork, Orange Chicken, Chow Mein, Shrimp with Lobster Sauce, etc. It comes with rice, a salad dressed with sweet and sour dressing, and their soup of the day. Now being a creature of habit, I (almost) always get the Szechuan Pork with Garlic Sauce, a spicy, delectable dish of pork strips, green and red peppers, onions, bamboo shoots and "rat ears" (it's a type of fungus). My husband usually gets the Orange Chicken, which is one of the best orange chicken dishes I've had. Sometimes he'll liven things up by ordering the Cashew Chicken, which is, as you can guess, chicken cooked with peppers, onions and well, cashews. The last time, however, I decided to be a little more spontaneous and ordered the Bulgogi, which is thinly-cut marinated rib eye cooked with onions and scallions. It was full of flavor because of the marinade, and let's face it, you can't go wrong with rib eye. You just can't. For kicks, we also ordered potstickers, which had ground pork and vegetables inside wonton wrappers and deep-fried. It was served with a too salty dipping sauce, but otherwise was just so-so.
The soup and salad starter, shown above. As you can see, the salad just seems pedestrian, in fact, the wonton strips are the most exciting ingredient, despite the sweet and sour Asian-flavored dressing.
The potsticker appetizer... looks appetizing, doesn't it? It's so-so. The dipping sauce (not shown)is very salty.
The teriyaki beef bowl my husband ordered. Broccoli was cooked to crisp tender, the way I like it. Teriyaki sauce wasn't too sweet, which was the way I like it as well. Good-sized portion for the price, so overall, not too shabby. Pictured below, we finally come to the Bulgogi, which is one of my new favorite dishes at Liliya. It comes with pickled ginger on top, which if you're not a fan of (I'm not), you can just take off. The onions are cooked until they're sweet, and there's enough sauce in the dish for your rice, plus, you can always ask for more rice when you run out... yum!
