Chinese Takeout a la Mayflower Chinese

Mayflower Chinese Carry-out
3066 Mount Pleasant NW
Washington, DC 20009 

Nom (1)

Cost per person: $5-$10 (depending on meal/hunger)

I have to admit my bias as a foodie. Ever since I was exposed to Thai cuisine and learned to love sushi in high school, it has been rare for me to crave lackluster Americanized Chinese take-out or delivery. Every so often, though, some combination of grad school, laziness or just the almost irresistible promise of crispy egg rolls steaming hot dipped into sweet and sour sauce dancing on my taste buds that beckons me to decide it is time to order some General Tso's or Chicken with Broccoli to get my fix. Feeling the need for an MSG* coma, my roommate and I called Mayflower at the south end of Mount Pleasant and trekked over to pick up our feast. 

The Basics: This is your deluxe Chinese-American carry-out with the fried chicken/hamburger/seafood/sub sandwich add-on package. We decided to leave the non-Chinese dishes to another day. Mayflower offers no thrills, just a few table so in theory you can dine in. Like most guests, though, we only used them while waiting. 

Speaking of the wait, it took 16 minutes from the moment I got off the phone placing my order to when we got our 4 dishes, 2 orders of egg rolls and order of soup. While I firmly believe food is worth waiting for and receiving so much food so fast is problematic, this is Chinese take-out!

The menu does have two options that aren't always standard take-out fare. Moo shu being the less uncommon, but scanning the menu we spotted Yat in it's many forms (i.e. standard yat, chicken yat, pork yat, etc.) "What is yat?" we asked and after some Googling we found this on Yahoo Answers: "Yat is thick noodles in a brown sauce, with whatever kind of meat you order it with." Unfortunately Wikipedia failed us on this one and that answer turned out to be right or at least close enough to what we ate. 

Many items on the menu especially the lunch special hover around $5 and some of the dinner combinations are closer to $10. Depending how hungry you are or what you want I doubt you'll spend much more than 10 dollars. For soda drinkers, they give you a free can of soda for $15 or more spent, 2 cans for $25 and we received 3 cans for our $30 bill. 

Vegetarians and calorie counters, like Pica Taco I hope to go back and try some of these menus, but for now know that there was a good diversity of dishes for vegetarians and a handful of steamed dishes that were described as non-fat.

What we ate: Using Yelp reviews and our typical Chinese ordering habits we picked the sweet and sour pork, orange chicken, General Tso's chicken, egg rolls, wonton soup (one reviewer sang its praises) and beef yat (too curious not try it).

In the deli containers: wonton soup and beef yat. On the left: orange chicken with fried rice and a lone egg roll.
On the right General Tso's Chicken and sweet and sour pork with fried rice.

What we thought: I have to say it again, this was standard cheap greasy Chinese food and not much more. The General Tso's was our consensus favorite, but while both the orange chicken and the General Tso's were labeled as spicy both were quite tame. The General Tso's had a little hint of spice and the orange chicken had a slight citrus flavor, but otherwise these two dishes were nearly identical. 

Orange chicken with fried rice.

General Tso's Chicken with steamed rice.
We were fond of the barricade of broccoli.

The sweet and sour pork was fried flavorlessness. With no sweet and no sour this dish was just cheap pork coated in batter. Our clear consensus least favorite dish.

Flavorless sweet and sour pork without any veggies.

The yat was a delight though! Still not better than our mediocre General Tso's chicken, but it was packed full of seemingly fresh vegetables like baby corn, snow peas, a variety of mushrooms, water chestnuts and more. We couldn't tell if the sauce was supposed to be a broth or if it was just really thin, but it was watery, fatty and bland. I would eagerly order yat at another establishment to see the same concept done well. 

Beef yat with all it's wonderful veggies,
but also with it's confusing sauce/broth type liquid.

 Another high point were our egg rolls. The filling left a lot to be desired, but the exterior was golden, brown and delicious with a satisfying crispness. A small, but appreciated touch was the sweet and sour sauce being given to us in a deli container rather than in packets. Made dipping easier.

Golden, brown and delicious egg roll.
Well, at least, on the outside.

To be fair to the wonton soup I had it last after taking a short nap after all this gluttony. I was impressed with the shear size of the wontons, so if you're a huge wonton fan this might be the soup for you. Sadly though the broth was watery and flavorless, the meat was unsurpsingly questionable and the wonton wrapper didn't make up for it with either flavor or consistency.

Wonton soup

Judgement: A solid single nom for Mayflower Chinese Carry-out. Definitely not worth the trip, but if you live on the south end of the neighborhood and are craving a greasy Chinese fix, you would probably be fairly happy with Mayflower, but if you're looking for slightly better Asian eats, I would head up to Adam Express for some Korean food or even for their Chinese-American interpretations. You could also pick delivery or grab a bus to Eastern Carry Out in Adams Morgan for a similarly greasy, cheap, yet better tasting meal.

*Mayflower clearly advertises they don't use MSG, so don't let my joke mislead you.