New Golden Dragon - Buffalo Grove Chinese worth a stop

After seeing one of my favorites, Golden Chef, go downhill, and not finding any decent substitutes for Cantonese, let alone my quest for a respectable Kung Pao Chicken, I happened on New Golden Dragon on Buffalo Grove Road just north of Dundee, tucked behind Garden Fresh (I was on a quest for fresh herbs, which seem to be in short supply this dark-of-the-year week).

The menu made me a little dubious - Thai dishes, teriyaki, and the photo of the Kung Pao showed uneven slices of chicken and too many vegetables. So I ordered the lunch special of Chow Fun with BBQ Pork, crispy please. The lunch specials run $6.25 for chicken or bbq pork to $7.25 for shrimp including tea, soup, veggie egg roll, rice (if not ordering noodles) and both almond and fortune cookie.

The hot and sour soup was definitely above average: reasonably spicy, reasonably thick stock (although more likely starch than collagen), nice and dark, good flavor.
Egg roll was crisp and hot -- needs some more umami, but that's a cost thing, no real complaint.
Chow fun was wonderful. Not particularly crispy, but a huge plate of wide sticky noodles and pork, only scallions, bean sprouts and minimal other veggies (I ate too quickly to count, I was really enjoying myself). And their chile oil has moxie (not like the stuff the LTH lunch summit at China Chef had which was close to Wesson).

I suspect their photos may be from stock or a previous chef, as the photos showed a smooth-textured spring roll, not a bubbly-textured egg roll, and the chow fun photo showed noodles not much wider than fettucine. I don't know when I'll be back again, but I'll definitely stop when I'm in the neighborhood.

Carry-out only on Christmas, and on my way out they gave me a box of Fujian Oolong tea bags as a holiday gift.

New Golden Dragon
https://www.newgoldendragonrestaurant.com/
742 S Buffalo Grove Rd, Buffalo Grove, IL 60089
Main: (847) 808-8383
Fax: (847) 808-8388
Hours: 11:30-9PM (10 on Fri/Sat), closed Tuesday