 Sweet & Sour Chicken Cantonese Style 
The Best Choice for a Chinese Take Away!
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Recommendation added: 04/02/2007 21:37
By: dewberry (YSUK rating +817)dewberry has been thanked 2 times for this contribution
"It's not often we order a Chinese take away as there are so many cheap and tasty Chinese sit down restaurants in our local area. Last night, however, I fancied a Chinese meal but couldn't face going out in the freezing cold, so decided to order something and get it delivered.
Best Choice Chinese & Cantonese Take Away is located in the Kingstanding area of Birmingham, within easy reach of the North Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield areas. It operates both a telephone ordering system or you can go into the small take away, order your food and wait to take it away with you.
The choice of food in Best Choice really is, well, the best. Everything you'd be able to order in a sit down restaurant is available here and the portion sizes are fantastic, with the added bonus of dishes being significantly cheaper than their sit down counterparts. One of the things I love about this take away is the fact that everything I've ordered has always been available; sometimes when we have visitors and I have to order for seven or eight people I'll use a different Chinese take away, without fail at least one of the components of our meal will be substituted for something else. Not so at Best Choice, our choice of food is always available here however many different dishes I order.
The menu is separated into sections for starters, soups, main meals, English dishes and desserts. It's easy to read the large menu laminated to the top of the counter and just as simple to flick through the small paper menu's available – not forgetting to pick one of these up to take home so you'll always be able to check the menu before ordering. The staff are equally comfortable if you order by the name of the dish or the number; indeed one lady prefers customers to order by the number when phoning as she finds it easier to understand and accurately write down.
Last night we ordered the Set Dinner for 3 (although there were only two of us we were being pigs!) which includes a selection of main meals, rice, plus Spare Ribs for a starter. Everything from this set menu was delicious; with food all tasted authentic and well cooked with none of the oiliness which usually accompanies Chinese take away food. The main reason we opted for the three person menu was the fact that it contains my ultimate favourite dish, Sweet & Sour Chicken Cantonese Style. This didn't disappoint in the slightest, with a rich and tangy sweet & sour sauce smothering decent sized pieces of chicken coated in a delicate crispy batter, this dish was absolutely delicious.
The Beef with Mushrooms was also ultra tasty, strips of tender cooked beef in a wonderfully thick spiced sauce accompanied by loads of good sized chunks of mushroom with beansprouts and water chestnuts. I'm not usually a fan of beef, but Best Choice cooks the meat to such perfection that it's impossible not to enjoy it. This is one of those dishes which leaves a gorgeous Chinese aftertaste in your mouth for a while after eating, and the prawn crackers included in the set meal are ideal for mopping up the sauce.
The King Prawn with Mixed Vegetables really surprised me as the prawns were absolutely huge and tasted as fresh as if they'd just been caught. There were many more prawns in this dish than are usually included in other take away's I sometimes use, literally every forkful contained a large prawn as well as a good variety of fresh tasting veg. Also in the set menu is a delicious Chicken Foo Young which I'm not overly keen on but my fella can eat buckets of the stuff. You'll get 1 ½ portions of Young Chow Fried Rice to go with your meals which is extremely light and non greasy – well, just greasy enough to be enjoyable!
This meal cost £23 which I think is a bargain considering you're getting no less than four full size main dishes, plus plenty of rice and spare ribs in a delicious plum sauce. To buy all this food separately would cost over £30 so it's well worth buying your meal this way. I cannot fault any of the food I ate last night; it was a gorgeous meal and both Mark and I ate until we were so full we couldn't move!
On a whole the menu for Best Choice is very good. On previous visits I've tasted a selection of their food and I've never had cause to complain about anything, the banana fritters are particularly good to round your meal off although we obviously didn't have room for those last night! The English menu has just five choices, but on occasion I'll eat an English dish from here and everything has been lovely – my very picky Mother-in-Law who won't entertain the idea of eating Chinese food absolutely adores their sausage and chips and my kids' love the roast chicken and chips.
Best Choice will deliver within a 3 year radius for a £1 delivery charge and you can arrange a delivery as soon as the take away opens at 5pm. The delivery guys are always extremely polite and when the food arrives it's always piping hot with the containers in perfect condition, you can tell they've been handled with care unlike some take aways where it looks like they've played football with your meal by the time it arrives. If you spend £8 from the menu you'll be given a choice of free chicken wings or mini spring rolls, and if your order comes to more than £25 Best Choice will throw in a decent bottle of wine at no extra cost.
The take away is open from 5pm until midnight every day apart from Wednesday's when they're closed. They never close early either and will fulfil any orders placed before midnight even if it means they have to stay open an extra half hour or so, this is great as it's so frustrating when you fancy a Chinese at 11.55pm only to be told that it's too late for a delivery and you need to haul ass to pick your food up within the next 10 minutes.
If you're going into the actual take away to pick up your food then wheelchair access is fine, the front door is wide enough to get an average wheelchair through and the floor is very open plan meaning you'll be able to turn with no problems.
Best Choice is located in Kingstanding, which is in North Birmingham. If you're local then I'd recommend phoning to get your food delivered for the sake of an extra £1 as it can be awkward to find, and also parking is a bit of a nightmare in the area. If you plan on driving, the best way to find the take away is to get onto the Queslett Road East (A4041) and drive as far as the Deers Leap Pub on your right hand side then take a right onto Cooksey Lane. Bandywood Road, and therefore Best Choice, is then the second or third road on your right.
Best Choice
87 Bandywood Road
Kingstanding
Birmingham
B44 9LT
Tel: 0121 3068008"
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