Recently, I posted about some of the best Chinese food in the Triangle - unfortunately I spoke too soon.
We had started hearing about a placed called
Red Palace - unfortunately, it is located in NE Raleigh, just north of the Wake Med campus on New Bern Avenue. That's a bit of a hike for most of those who live/work around the RTP area. Fortunately, we were in that area, and decided to track down this restaurant.
The restaurant is located in a fairly non-descript strip mall along the west side of New Bern Avenue. When you step into the restaurant, you get taken back about 20 years to the Chinese restaurants that I grew up with - ornately decorated with dark wood and red colors. While this has little to do with the food (the majority of those places were not that good) it was a sign of the "old style" Chinese Restaurant.
We were handed the menu - the thick booklet consisted of the standard Americanized fare accessible to most who frequent the normal Chinese restaurants. The back half of the menu, however, included specialties, many pre-order, that would be expected from the top Chinese restaurants in any major city in the US. Some of these would be even hard to get in the top restaurants in the US. Unfortunately, dishes like a real Peking Duck require advance order, so we were out of luck. Spicy hot pot was also on the dish, but we had our hearts set on more standard dishes that day.
We tried a spicy seafood dish, a standard fatty pork dish and a regular plate of their fresh vegetables. Wow! The spicy seafood dish spoke clearly of the chef's Szechuan ancestry. The fatty pork dish was presented in a classic style, basically well matched to go with rice. The vegetables were clearly fresh, not overburdened with other spices.
This restaurant is clearly capable of the classic Chinese dishes that citizens of smaller cities like Raleigh seldom get to try. Thankfully, with this one restaurant, even with the extensive drive, will allow us to save our airline ticket costs to enjoy great dinners. We are looking forward to see how the "fancier" dishes will stand up to some of our national favorites.
Red Palace
3945 New Bern Ave
Raleigh, NC 27610
Tel: (919) 231-3788
