Restaurant Review - Jade Palace in Wappinger Falls, NY

The front of Jade Palace in Wappinger Falls, NY

Jade Palace is an old school-style Chinese restaurant.  When I was young, this was the only type of Chinese restaurant that there was - ornate, fish tank, the whole nine yards.  While the decor is not as fancy as some places that I've been, the restaurant is clean, easy on the eyes, and comfortable.  Besides, I go to restaurants for one main reason - the FOOD - and that accounts for at least 90% of how I evaluate a restaurant.  If the food isn't good, then what's the point?

Luckily, the food at Jade Palace is EXCELLENT.  They have a wonderful style, solid service, and prices that are very, very reasonable.  The lady and I had eaten earlier, so we didn't get a gigantic meal - but believe me, there was still plenty of food.  Portion size is very respectable, and there's a good amount of meat - good quality meat I might add - in each dish.

Let's take a look at how our most recent meal went :)

Chinese noodles and duck sauce.  Yum!

Now this is kind of expected, but many Chinese restaurants no longer do this, so it's worth mentioning - Jade gives you tasty fried noodles and duck sauce before you order.  This used to be standard, but more and more places aren't doing it.  I for one, love the nice crunchy noodles.  Tasty, not too greasy, good stuff!

Egg drop soup

For appetizers to start, we ordered the Egg Drop soup ($1.50) and the Hot & Sour soup ($1.65).  My Egg Drop was delicious, wonderful chicken flavor with a great amount of egg swirled in and no off flavors.  You know a good egg drop when you taste one and this is it!

Some places add sesame oil to it which I also enjoy but this is the more common type - just a pure flavor of the chicken & egg, made perfectly :)

Hot & sour soup

The lady had Hot & Sour soup which was filled with tasty mushrooms and other mysterious things the way a good Hot & Soup should be - nice and soup, medium heat.  Good chunks of tofu, and nice quality mushrooms - none of those canned style mushrooms you see in the soups at the Chinese fast-food places sometimes.  This is the real deal.

All in all, very good bowls of soup, and very fairy priced.



For our appetizer, we ordered the Hacked Chicken with Sesame Sauce ($4.95).  This unassuming dish is basically your standard Chinese-style velvet chicken pieces with lettuce and a delicious thick Sesame sauce over it - served cold.  A little spicy, and super delicious!  You mix it all together and consume as such.  The sesame flavor is fantastic and the dish is simple, but absolutely fantastic.

Hacked Chicken with Sesame Sauce

This one was suggested by the lady and indeed I might not have tried it otherwise - but boy, am I glad that I did.  They give you a nice amount of chicken too in the dish, it's a good value, and the chicken itself is of a good quality - no off flavors, and no "knuckles."  I hate biting into those :)

Now the main course - Shredded Beef Szechuan Style ($9.95).  This is a dish that, when done right, is extraordinary.  Jade Palace does this dish Justice!  Full of delicious beef, scallions, carrots, celery, and a scrumptious sauce - they really do it right.  This was rather spicy.  I'm a person who really enjoys spicy foods and I'd give this a solid 4 or 5... the spiciness was juuust right.  We made short order of this dish - it was a good portion but just too tasty to let it exist for more than a few minutes :)  Just wonderful.

Shredded beef Szechuan style - and a glass of plum wine

These pictures don't do the food justice.  It looked just gorgeous and tasted even better.  And then it was GONE. :)

Oh, you'll also notice a glass of plum wine the lady ordered... I think this was around $2.50 or something.  Not bad, not great, sweet and one dimensional.  Hey, it was a cheap glass of wine, it did the job ;)

I was thinking of ordering dessert and then our waitress brought us this:

Oranges, pineapple, and two fortune cookies

Some orange slices and some pineapple, along with some fortune cookies.  While I don't eat said cookies (made with trans fat, a poison that you should avoid in any amount), it was still a nice gesture - and the oranges and pineapple chunks were tasty as anything :)

Service was solid and responsive, I was happy to give a 25% tip (ALWAYS TIP YOUR WAIT STAFF WELL!  IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO) and all things being equal - I'd go back in a heartbeat.  Jade Palace has some delicious Chinese food and if you're anywhere in the Dutchess County area, I highly recommend stopping in there and trying any of the dishes I mentioned - or really, any of your favorite Chinese dishes.  It's clear they have a great chef in the kitchen and I have confidence they could pull anything off.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this food as much as I enjoyed eating it.  Thanks for reading - and let me know if you wind up going to Jade Palace in Wappinger Falls, NY!

The entrance to Jade Palace as we left - it's dark out :)