Tang's China House

Tang's China House is back in the family. Lillian Tang-Smith returned to run the Sarnia restaurant her parents built, took the dining room through a renovation, and reopened it for sit-down service — the current reason to walk in rather than only call ahead. The kitchen cooks Chinese and Canadian-Chinese, and it cooks for the whole table: a menu wide enough to carry chow mein, family dinners, and a separate takeout sheet for the nights an order leaves with someone in the car. Dine-in and takeout run on their own menus, a practical split for a place built to feed the table and the takeout bag in equal measure.

The clearest read on the current kitchen is Tang's Chow Mein, the plate the restaurant puts forward as its own — a Cantonese-style stir-fry of chicken, BBQ pork, shrimp and vegetables in a light sauce over pan-fried egg noodles, built to share. The starters carry more intent than a default egg-roll order: Chicken & Chive Fried Wontons stuffed with chives, scallions and chicken and served with a sweet chili mayo, Jar-Doo wings glossed in soy and ginger, and the standbys of Wonton Soup and Szechuan hot-and-sour. From there the mains run wide — Nam Yee Chicken in a Chinese miso sauce with green beans and napa, listed for dine-in only; Black Pepper Beef, sliced beef and onions in a spicy black-pepper sauce; Beef Broccoli and Mixed Mushrooms built on straw, shiitake and white mushrooms; and Pork Tiki Tiki, a Polynesian-leaning plate of diced vegetables, pineapple and almonds finished with crispy noodles.