BOS & Lucky Sunday: Worst General Tso’s I’ve Ever Had

May 15, 2008

Why change it up when I know I’ve found the best? With food, trying a new version of an old favorite ends in disappointment at least 9 out of 10 times. After Zach at Midtown Lunch tested out China Gourmet’s General Tso’s on my recommendation, I decided to follow suit, trying one of his readers picks, BOS & Lucky Sunday. As soon as I removed the tiny container from the paper delivery bag, I knew this was trouble. It doesn’t look awful, but looks were deceiving. And don’t even get me started on the dumplings.

Buffalo Chicken sauce was the smell my nose registered as the cover came off the General Tso’s. Interesting I thought, trying to remain open-minded despite my disappointment with the serving size.

I have two requirements when it comes to Chinese Food Lunch Specials:

Bang for the buck and deliciousness

Once I had poured out the small container of generic, gummy fried rice and covered it with the slimy General Tso’s, the portion size was legitimate but the deliciousness was highly lacking.

After the success of ordering White Meat General Tso’s from China Gourmet, I went with the same order at Lucky Sunday. What arrived was an embarrassment. For $7.45 I received gnarled, bruised, and thinly sliced pieces of what might be white meat chicken if chicken at all. The pieces of meat in this dish were thin, greasy, and flimsy. I don’t even know if all of the chicken in this entire dish was equal to two of the huge pieces of white meat chicken at China Gourmet. This is an absolute travesty considering I can get better food and bang for my buck paying the same price at China Gourmet. Take a look:

Lucky Sunday

China Gourmet

There wasn’t even any broccoli in Lucky Sunday’s Tso’s. I don’t even need broccoli in my General Tso’s but I can deal, it’s what I’ve grown accustomed to and it makes me feel a tiny bit healthier. But peppers? Cabbage? Baby Corn? Get this filler material out of here. I want real chicken and I want more of it. It was so obvious that our white meat order was disregarded and that there was no thought put into this dish. I’ve never seen thin pieces of chicken in General Tso’s, it’s always hefty fried nuggets. This was pure crap. Even the eggroll was terrible, underfried and gummy.

As far as the dumplings are concerned, you can avoid them. We went with the Fried Sampler ($5.45), 2 chicken, 2 pork, and 2 vegetable. I received a half filled thimble of dumpling sauce (my own fault for not ordering more) and 6 decent looking dumplings. The meat fillings were edible but the veggie dumpling tasted pretty sour when teamed with the dumpling sauce. The actual dumplings were thick, gummy and overdone. Bad news.

To their credit, BOS & Lucky Sunday also sells Cantonese Noodle Soup and Vietnamese food through Pho V858-8, the name on a 2nd menu that was included with my delivery. In the end, it makes no difference to me because I will never order from Lucky Sunday again.