Leon’s Cuisine

My first ever review of food in a restaurant and… it was take out. I actually think this is a good thing since this review will only focus on food and not the ambiance or the service. Leon’s Cuisine is a Chinese restaurant that is found on 1283 3rd Ave in Chula Vista. I never stepped foot on the restaurant but from seeing pictures you can miss the restaurant since its so small. So how was the food? I ordered Chicken Noodle Soup, Chicken Wings, Barbeque Pork, an Eggroll, Chicken Chow Mein and Pork Fried Rice. From the restaurant’s name and the location the Chinese restaurant (in Chula Vista) this is definitely not real Chinese cuisine, but that doesn’t mean the food is not good. The chicken noodle soup was good. It tasted like Campbell soup but better without all the saltiness and thicker noodles. The best part of the meal was the chicken wings. At first, I thought the fried chicken wings were covered in sweet and sour sauce, but instead it was sweet. Even covered with this mystery red sauce, the chicken was crunchy and it really worked with the chicken. I highly recommend this dish. The next thing was the barbeque pork. It has a nice dark red color to it and it was really tasty. It was chewy because it had fatty pieces, which gives a unique personality of the dish. I thought it was a bit greasy but overall good. The next item was my least favorite and that was the eggroll. It was not good at all and the filling was sludge like. It had lettuce and other ingredients that I could not understand why it would be in an eggroll. It left my fingers greasy and wanted to throw it away. The chicken chow mein was the most unusual dish. I have always had the chow mein with thick noodles with almonds, AND chicken. This dish had very thin long noodles and A LOT of bean sprouts. The bean sprouts overpowered the dish. Not as much chicken as I would like, while it did have broccoli it did add a positive note to the dish. The final dish was the pork-fired rice and I think it was the second best. Usually fired rice is harder than usual, but this rice was very soft. The rice had pieces of the barbeque pork and created a good combination, it was the most surprising of all the dishes.

So would I recommend this restaurant? No I would not. This restaurant (even though I never been to it) makes good quality food, but not good enough. Its first not authentic Chinese food; which totally threw my taste buds. Out of the six dishes, I only really liked two of the dishes. Now if you are not trying to find that authentic restaurant, then try it out. The dish I definitely recommend is the pork fried rice.

-Joshua Villalpando

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