Tasty Garden - Arcadia

I have eaten at the Alhambra location before and reviewed it at totaltemptation.blogspot.com and its good solid food. Authenticity and amount of MSG may be suspect.

This place is located in an area not as crowded as the Alhambra location, double the parking of the Alhambra location. The restaurant itself is pretty large with a tea bar in back. On this Saturday at 1 in the afternoon, the restaurant was packed. While in line, they have a paper menu you can start choosing your order from so things are quicker once you get inside.

We did have an incident this time through, not sure if it was lack of communication, mistake, or what. We were given number 41, but there was another group given that number also, and then they put us as 6 people instead of 7, so they made us wait until number 51 was called. Kind of strange, albeit it was only 20 minutes difference.

Once we sat down, it took awhile yet for the waitress to pick up our order sheet. Just a note: you can order stuff not on the sheet but on their full menu also.

The food: (I apologize for the pictures, they were taken with camera phone and in a hurry before hungry peeps tried to grab the food)

Based on recc on Yelp, tried the Walnut Shrimp - definitely not what I would imagine an authentic dish tasting like, but it was so yummy!. In fact, no picture, because it was the first to come out and everyone was hungry! The shrimps are fresh tasting inside and tender, the batter is thick and crispy the outside. The sauce covering the shrimp had a nice consistency and taste. 4.5/5 stars

The Orange Beef was a little bland compared to everything else. It was made more of sour oranges than sweet from what I could tell, causing a strange after taste. 2.5/5 stars

French Style Beef - The beef itself was tasty and tender, as long as you didn't pick up too much basil on it. 3.5/5 stars

Chow Fun with Garlic on top - This was excellent, the cripsy garlic crumbs added a unique taste and texture to the noodles.

4.5/5 stars

Veggies - this had ginger in it, they looked fresh and full of color, I was looking forward to it until the taste of ginger. I'm not a ginger fan, but for those that love it, order this! 2.5/5 stars

Squid with Spicy Salt - Super Salty, but crisp on the outside, chewy but tender on the inside like squid should be 4/5 stars

Yang Chow Fried Rice - Kind of bland actually, but edible 3/5 stars (not pictured)

We also had the Hong Kong Waffle again, excellent, love the batter for this, and the smell is like that of a fresh bakery. Must have. 5/5 stars (previously pictured here http://totaltemptation.blogspot.com/2010/01/tasty-garden-alhambra.html )

Overall Service was not great especially with the incident above, food was on par or slightly above average. Prices for "lunch specials" were a little on the higher side despite the portions being a little on the scarce side for many dishes. 3/5 stars