[REVIEW] Baybridge Szechuan Cuisine Chinese Restaurant, Bayside, NY

For 28 years Baybridge Szechuan Cuisine Chinese Restaurant has been faithfully serving residents of northern Bayside, Queens, NY.  The restaurant itself is clean, though dated, and lacking some of the “charm of old school Americanized Chinese restaurants.  For a Tuesday night, there were a fair amount of occupied tables, and it appeared they had a steady flow of take-out orders being picked up.

Baybridge Szechuan Cuisine Chinese Restaurant is located at 209-06 Cross Island Parkway, Bayside, NY 11360.  Fair warning:  Do NOT enter the address in to your GPS, for it will lead you to believe the restaurant is ON the Cross Island Parkway.  Instead, plug in the name of the restaurant in to your GPS, and it will take you directly to the Baybridge Shopping Plaza, which is a two level strip mall.  The restaurant being on the Ground level.  There is ample free parking.

Fair Warning #2:  Though “Szechuan Cuisine” is prominent in the name of the restaurant, you will have a hard time finding Szechuan dishes on their menu.  I think they’re serving Cantonese cuisine.  But, who am I to argue?

As for Service, our waiter Jimmy made sure we were well tended to.  He offered suggestions on which dishes to try.  We asked for some “authentic” Chinese dishes.  His number one recommendation was Mongolian Two Flavors.  More on that later.

Appetizers

While Mee Tsu Yan and I waited for Mee Gonzi Biao and Mee Yong Joo to figure out the GPS “glitch”, we kicked things off with…

Steamed Pork Bun – While it was mostly dough, and not sweet at that nor all that light and poufy, the little bit of pork inside these massive buns was tasty.  

No sooner did we place that order, when the other Mee’s arrived.  So, we ordered our usual appetizer…

BBQ Spare Ribs – I must say they looked ok, and appeared to be meaty… BUT, they were very dry.  And the BBQ was absent.  Or found lacking.  No sauce oozing out of the corners of our mouths.  No sweetness to titillate our palates.  We weren’t off to a good start.  But, we still had the entrees to look forward to.  Especially the much touted one.

…

The Entrees

Mongolian Two Flavors – By the way, you can’t choose the flavors, or request additional flavors.  This is it.  Shrimp (a few pieces), Chicken (fewer??), scallions, some other veggies, black bean, being one flavor, and I’m not sure what the other flavor was.  

But what was beyond startling, at least to us, was how it was presented.  It came wrapped in aluminum foil!  We thought they mistakenly served us someones leftovers!!  The aluminum foil was opened at the table to reveal the dish.

This dish had the slightest of bite to it… But still, I wouldn’t venture to call this Szechuan cuisine.  I can best compare this dish to the next one we were served.  They pretty much tasted the same, though the Mongolian Two Flavors was more savory.

Moo Shu Chicken – Served with four pancakes.  This is the same Moo Shu Chicken you will get at any Chinese take-out restaurant.

Sauteed Baby Bok Choy – It’s hard to not love Chinese vegetables.  It really is!  But, this dish was really lacking in any kind of flavor.  I wish I could have liked it.  But, I think my taste buds had called it a night by this time.

…

We were ready for the check and to call it a night.  Oh, and of course, tally up our rating of Baybridge Chinese Szechuan Cuisine:

The saving grace might have been our Fortunes:

Better to aim at the moon than shoot into the well.

Be satisfied with what you already own.

Be prepared to accept a wondrous opportunity in the days ahead!

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may diet.

Humbly submitted for your consumption,

—Mee Magnum (“Chop!  Chop!”)

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