Restaurant Review: Twin Dragon (Chinese)

My sister and I went to the Twin Dragon Restaurant and had its lunch buffet.

Twin Dragon
1809 Carey Ave
Cheyenne, WY, 82001
Lunch buffet - 11-2.30. $7.95
Mandarin and Szechuan style
Cocktails
Banquet facilities available
Open 7 days, Mon - Sat: 11 am - 10, Sun 11 am to 9 pm

The restaurant has its own parking lot, but there were also plenty of empty spaces in front of the Bank of the West building. (And if you need to wait for your party, there's a great magazine/bookstore on the opposite corner.)

My sister is more of an adventurous eater than I am, so she'll be reviewing the restaurants we visit more thoroughly than I (for the Cheyenne Connecting Point web magzine.)

For myself, I had the sweet and sour pork (as there was no sweet and sour chicken on the buffet table, that I could find), cashew chicken, sesame chicken.

1) Their fried cream cheese wontons had crab meat in them. Since I don't care for seafood, this was a disappointment. I love eating cream cheese wontons dipped in sweet and sour sauce.
2) The Sesame chicken was a little spicier than I like, but worse, the chicken seemed very stringy. 3 times as much breading as chicken.
3) The S&S pork and the Cashew chicken were good, though there were lots of cashews and very little chicken. There were more water chestnuts (or some cubed vegetable)than chicken.

I thought the sauces were very heavy, and my sister agreed. But then, I prefer a thick sweet and sour sauce. And the cashew chicken would have been excellent in its sauce, if only there'd been more chicken.

I had some peppery kind of chicken, the name of which I can't remember, but that was good, too. There was also "Happy Family" on the buffet table, something that surprised my sister because apparently this normally isn't done. (Happy Family is shrimp, beef and chicken together.)

Serving staff were efficient and friendly.


Imagine the Twin Dragon on the right hand side of a cross. The Bank of the West is on the left hand side of the cross. Opposite that horizontal road is the Newstand and Pipe Shop (never fear, nobody smokes pipes inside.)

Corner newstand in the bottom floor of this building.

Bank of the WestThe building is historical.

Review: Hacienda Guadalajara Mexican restaurant

The restaurant driving east on East Lincolnway, with a right hand turn into the first of two parking lots (one on either side).

Hacienda Guadalajara Mexican restaurant
317 E. Lincolnway
Cheyenne, Wyoming, 82001
307-632-1432

Note that there are two Guadalajara restaurants in Cheyenne. There's one called the Guadalajara Family Mexican Restaurant, located at 1745 Dell Range Boulevard, and then there's this one, the one my sister and I visited today, the Hacienda Guadalajara, located at 317 E. Lincolnway.

Directions
Get door-to-door directions from such sites on your computer as YahooMaps or Mapquest. Note that if you're going East on Lincolnway from the "main" north-south drag of Warren, the restaurant is only a couple of blocks away. It doesn't have a large sign for you to see it easily, just lettering on the front of the building.

(The first thing you'll pass, going east on East Lincoln, is the Green Door Bar and Lounge. The Hacienda is the next driveway. Note that big ol' rock which tells you where to turn. If you're driving west on East Lincoln, you'll see a Papa Johns building on your right, and a little bit further down the road, an Arby's. The Hacienda is on your left, across the road, before you get to that Arbys.

The Ambiance
The restaurant seems purpose built as a Mexican restaurant - all the archways, false fronts and so on that you associate with such a restaurant.


Hallway before you even enter the restaurant.

I loved the interior. The chairs were very colorful, and seemed comfortable. There were beaten metallic pieces of artwork on the walls...don't know quite how to describe them but I liked them and indeed covet them for my own home. Will have to do some research in how to get them!

The chairs
It's a very large restaurant - three large seating areas. Although there were quite a few people during our lunch time meal, we could barely hear any voices, so good dampening accoustics.

Waitstaff was friendly and helpful.

The food
We were there for lunch. I had the Quesadilla Ranchera: two flour tortillas filled with chicken (or beef) topped with tomatoes, onions, sour cream and guacemole.

My quesadilla, without guamacole or tomatoes. Not sure if they normally give that big of a glob of sour cream, or if they were compensating because I'd asked them to leave off the guacamole and tomatoes.

My sister had the Arroz con pollo: Tender pieces of grilled chicken (or shrimp) specially prepared with fried mushrooms, onions, green peppers, and spices in a mild sauce. Served over a bed of rice with melted jack cheese. Garnished with tomatoes and avocado.



My quesadilla ranchera was not the best. The refried beans seemed very liquidy - although this made it easier to mix them in with my rice, I would have preferred them to be a bit thicker. The chicken in the quesadilla was very bland, seemed to have no seasonings on it at all. The onions were on top of the tortilla rather than inside, mixed with the meat.

My sister, who will be writing her own review of her meal, also commented on the blandness of the chicken, speculating that they probably just had a big pot full of un-seasoned boiled chicken which they would then mix into whatever chicken dish needed it....(thus not alowing the chicken to marinate in seasoning and thus achieve a better flavor).

Having said that, I took half of my lunch home, as I nornally do, and am snacking on it now. And after a couple of hours of being allowed to sit and marinate in the cheese and the onions (because I mixed everything together while at the restaurant) it tastes a bit better.

We're going to give this restaurant another try this weekend, and then my sister will complete her review.


I'm actually standing in the parking lot with a western view. You will see this side of the restaurant as you drive west on Lincolnway, but of course you'll see it from across the road. Turn left into the parking lot when safe to do so!


A view of the front of the restaurant. The sun wasn't cooperating today...but you get an idea.

Food, Glorious Food (aka the Sweet and Sour Gourmet)

I've just started a new blog with this title - which you here at the Miniscule Guide to Cheyenne won't need to worry about, since I'll share the same reviews here. But it will also have reviews of TV dinners, frozen deserts, snacks, etc - the stuff I'd normally eat if I didn't have someone to cook my food for me.

The restaurant reviews will also be published at the Cheyenne Connecting Point, which I hope to have ready to go live in March.

These restaurant reviews are actually going to be "selection" reviews. For example today I went to Hacienda Guadalajara, and had their quesadilla lunch special. Loved the ambiance of the restaurant - loved it - but the quesadillas were no more than edible. On the other hand...they have over 50 menu selections, so can you really decide on not going to a restaurant based on the review of just one meal?

Over the course of the next year, though, my sister and I (my sister's the one who's been around the world and knows what this food should taste like) will go to these restaurants a myriad of times and provide reviews of various dishes.

So that's something you can look forward to!

Consumer Alert: Don't buy CrzyZArt Glue Stick

I went into my local Walmart today - the one on Dell Range (yeah, it's also the only Walmart in Cheyenne, but I like to be uber-precise) and bought a large foam board and some Cra-Z-Art Gluesticks. My intent was to paste my maps of Wyoming onto this foam board, to make it easier to look at. (Since after 40 years I'm still no better at refolding maps.)

Anyway, took a GLue Stick and applied it liberally to the back of the map. There seemed to be a slight tackiness as I did so. Turned the map over, pressed it onto the foamboard...and nothing. Fell right off. Felt the back of it...nothing there. NO residula tackiness, no nothing.

So tomorrow I'll go back and get some Elmers Liquid Cementn, which is what I wish I'd bought today. As it is, 88 cents plus tax down the drain.

Book: A Triceratops Hunt in Pioneer Wyoming: The Journals of Barnum Brown and JP Sams

A Triceratops Hunt in Pioneer Wyoming: The Journals of Barnum Brown and JP Sams. University of Kansas Expedition of 1895, by Barnum Brown andJ.P. Sams, edited by Michael F. Kohl, Larry D. Martin and Paul Brinkman
High Plains Press, 2004
128 pages, plus 1895 milestones, endnotes, bibliography and index

Description
Professor Samuel Williston led a group of rugged young dinosaur hunters from the University of Kansas to barely-settled Wyoming. They were searching for Triceratops, the three-horned dinosaur, still new to science.

Professor Williston, at the prime of an illustrious career in paleontology, had a nnew new museum at the university he wanted to fill with bones and fossils. A Triceratops would make a perfect addition.

This expedition was a turning point for two of the young students-Barnum Brown and Elmer Riggs-who would go on to eminent bone hunting careers of their own. As Riggs later wrote, they chose "to follow the lure of paleontology [while] lying awake...among the sagebrush of Wyoming...enjoying the coolness of a desert night, and looking up into the starry canopy above."

Wyoming, still "a tough cowboy place", only five yeares a state, was just beginning as well. The Kansas Expedition, accustomed to more civilized surroundings, marveled at Hartville, "composed of one shack, a combination of post office and whiskey saloon"; Wheatland, "a small osis in the desert...being boomed by eastern capitalists"; Badger where a home/store/post office was "about the size of a Kansas henhouse"; and Lusk, where the minister was a woman whose husband was serving time in the penitentiary.

Here young Barnum Brown and University Regent James P Sams record in two seperate journals the colorful details of the expedition. Editors Michael Kohl, Larry D Martin, and Paul Brinkman have put the diaries in context with expansive footnotes.

Table of Contents
Introduction by Paul Brinkman, Larry D. Martin and Michael F. Kohl

Barnum Brown Journal:
Kansas State Geological Expedition, 1895

J.P. SAm's Journal:
Fossil Huntin in Wyoming

Maps:
Routes of the 1895 Kansas Expedition
Southeast Wyoming, 1892
Wyoming Sites of the 1895 Kansas Expedition
Milestones, 1895
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
______________
This blog is updated every Monday and Thursday with books, and at other times if news occurs

Wind, wind, wind!!!!

How many posts have I made here, I wonder, commenting on the wind. The never ending wind, that makes even the warmest winter days uncomfortable.

Anyway, many things are afoot which I'll be blogging about shortly, so stay tuned.