Monday, January 18, 2010

Silver Pond (Ft. Lauderdale)

For my grandmother’s birthday we went to Silver Pond in Fort Lauderdale. For authentic Chinese food, Silver Pond is our restaurant of choice. It’s really hard to find true authentic Chinese food in South Florida, so Silver Pond is quite a diamond in the rough.


Even though my friends and I are adults, we are the “babies” of the gathering and were relegated to what only can be defined as a “children’s table.” The upside of this was that we were able to order our food separate from the main table.


So we conferred between ourselves and decided on our menu for the night: a mix of vegetables, seafood, and meats dishes. Since we were unable to order green beans, we ordered snow tip peas lightly sautéed in garlic and olive oil. Now, I love snow tip peas so I was happy that green beans were unavailable that night (though I would have deferred to my friend’s wishes, since I chose most of the other dishes). It’s a very light green, much akin to sautéed spinach in my opinion, with a slight kick of garlic. Very yummy. ^_^


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Next we had an order of Hong Kong Pork Chops. To me, this dish is the closest in relationship to Americanized Chinese food. I loved this dish, even though I despise Americanized Chinese food. It is slightly sweet, but savory. I suppose it is “upscale” orange chicken, but with pork.


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When my family orders crab we always order dungeness crab, only because blue crabs are pitifully small with little meat inside them. As usual, we ordered it with a ginger and scallion sauce. It’s divine, except for the fact that I have to be a slob to eat it in the restaurant.


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I ordered the salt and pepper shrimp a dish that I order at almost every Chinese restaurant that I visit. It’s so delicious when done well and I have a soft spot in my heart for fried foods. We order it without the shell, since it makes life easier on some of us (well, not me…I just eat it with the shell on, like any good Vietnamese girl). The “green stuff” are not always scallions, so if you do not like spicy foods, I’d inspect the dish carefully before I take a bite. The batter is quite light and the seasoning doesn’t overpower the flavor of the shrimp itself.


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Ma Po Tofu has been hit or miss these days at Silver Pond. It’s a slightly spicy dish with tofu, veggies (green peas and bamboo shoots), and meat (I believe it was ground pork). The last time we had this dish, the bamboo shoots had a tolerable, but unwelcome, sour flavor to them. However this time the dish was prepared sans that sour note and was a welcome accompaniment to our rice.


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Our seventh and last dish of the night was beef chow fun in a black bean sauce. My boyfriend adores black bean sauce and I’m pretty sure if he was given the choice, would drown most of his food in its goodness.


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Sadly Silver Pond is quite a trek from my house and it's kind of a good thing anyways, because if it wasn't...I'd be very poor from eating there all the time! So if you are in the neighborhood I highly suggest visiting Silver Pond for lunch or dinner.


Silver Pond
4285 N. State Road 7
Lauderdale Lakes, FL 33319
Silver Pond on Urbanspoon

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