Oriental Grill 

Last update 12 June 2913

Finding good Chinese food in México is tough.  We found a pretty good buffet, but Oriental Grill is the only Chinese restaurant we have found.    Their website is here. 

264 Cobián in Torreón

Half of the main dinning room.

Victor was our very fine waiter.

We divided our feast into two rounds because there was not enough room on our extra large table to fit everything we wanted. We wanted to try as many dishes as we could.  The four of us cleaned all the plates.

Round 1

Clockwise from the upper left:

Camarones al Jengibre -- an excellent shrimp dish

* Oriental Pasta -- one of the best noodle dishes I have ever eaten.

Shiitake Arroz -- it sounded great on the menu, but it was just so-so on the table.

* Kung Pao Mixta -- shrimp, beef and chicken Kung Pao style.  Outstanding

* Pollo Agridulces -- Sweet and sour chicken.  Very good, but I would like more pineapple chunks.

Rib Eye Teriyaki -- I'm not much of a beef eater; the guys loved it.        

* = my favorites

Round 2. 

As we finished dishes in the first round, Victor brought these dishes.

Clockwise from the upper left:

Chop Suey Mixta -- I've never had chop suey prepared this way.  I thought it was so-so; Alex loved it.

* Pescado Hunan --  Chunks of fried white fish with a Hunan sauce.  Very good!

Mongolian Beef -- the best I have had.

* Pollo a la Piña -- Fried chicken pieces with a pineapple glaze in a hollowed out pineapple half.  Excellent.

Total cost with tip was $1,900 pesos which is about $150 dollars.

On another Sunday afternoon, Nery and I went back for a few more things we wanted to try.

I took a peak into the kitchen.

We began with hot and sour soup.

Once again our favorite waiter, Victor, was our guy.  This time he brought us (clockwise from top left)

Chow Mien with beef

Pollo Hunan (clicken)

Pescado Hunan (fish) a repeat

Tuna and Salmon tostados

And not pictured, Shrimp Hunan and Filet Shangal (beef)

For this visit, the total cost with tip was $1200 pesos which is about $100 dollars for two people.

They have a large dessert menu, but Nery and I always have this wonderful ice cream dish.  Vanilla ice cream topped with finely diced apple, sliced almonds and trimmed with sliced strawberries.

I'm ready to dig in.

On another Sunday afternoon, Nery and I went back for our fifth visit to eat duck.

There are four duck dishes on the menu.  Each is available as a whole duck or a half.  We ordered halves which turned out to be an awful lot of food.

We began with two appetizers --

Asparagus wrapped in fish with a slightly spicy sauce. Really good!

Fried calamari salad.  Nery liked it more than I did. I had rather have calamari raw.

Peking Duck, the best of the dishes

Duck with a tamarindo salsa

Miguel, our waiter, did a fine job preparing the Peking Duck at the table

Cantonese-style fried duck with a sweet oyster salsa.

Duck with a sambal (mixed chiles)salsa

The Peking duck was good, and it was fun watching Miguel do an expert job of forming the rolls using only a fork and a spoon. I like to call them Chinese tacos.  There was more than we could eat. 

The Cantonese dish was our least favorite. Without the salsa, it was much too dry.  Even with the salsa, which was good, it was less than wonderful.  It didn't even taste like duck;  it could  just as well have been deep fried pork.

The duck in the other two dishes was stir fried before tasty sauces were added. They were fair, but they would have been a lot better steamed rather than stir fried in a wok.

I doubt we will repeat any of these dishes.  There are many much better choices on the menu.

It was also an expensive meal.  With soft drinks, ice cream and nice tip for Miguel, the total was $2,130 pesos or about $170 dollars = $85 dollars each was too much for the quality.

.

Salmón Sake

Salmón Urumbamb

Salmón Teriyaki

The fiood looked fine, but the salmon was woefully overcooked --  hard and nearly tasteless. 

Sad to see salmon abused that way.  I wanted to cry.

Despite the duck and salmon disappointments, Oriental Grill remains my favorite out of 30+ restaurants I have tried in :Laguna.

Since the salmon day, Nery and I have returned three times as we continue our quest to try every entrée on the menu.  We are more than half way with 49 dishes to date. We expect to complete the menu by the end of the summer.

Among the outstanding dishes we have enjoyed are three new adds to the menu –

Lomo Saltado del Peru (beef), Pollo Sweet Chili, and Sea Bass.

Atún Boga, thinly sliced raw tuna was a big hit with us both.

Stay tuned, there’ll be more

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