Last night we went out for a late dinner with our friends Andrew and Katie and met up at China Cottage on Far Hills in Centerville. I'm a North China girl myself, but Andrew loves his China Cottage. Mr. FvF ordered the Szechuan Chicken with hot & sour soup and a spring roll and I has the Mongolian Beef (and his aforementioned spring roll). We also ordered a bottle of Clos du Bois for the table.

Mr. FvF was totally in love with the hot & sour soup, claiming it's the best he's ever had. The roll was tops, too - I love the thinner wrappers they use so you can actually taste the filling. The service couldn't have been any better. One of the managers who seated us and poured our wine made sure she gave us all fliers for their Chinese New Year celebration that takes place on February 22 & 23 where they'll be serving 11 specialty dishes. Not something we'll likely be attending, though, as the price is $50 per person. I'm sure it's worth it, but some things just aren't in the average bird's budget.

Our entrees arrived to the table looking scrumptralescent.





My only complaint is that I had way, WAY more onions than beef in my dish. I love onions pretty hard, but that's not what I'm paying $10 for. The mister's Szechuan chicken was fantastic, but could have been brought up a peg or two on the spice level. They did make a mistake on our bill, but it was only a matter of one of our friends' dishes ending up on our ticket. More easily remedied between us than asking them to take it back and fix it.


4.5 out of 5 sporks!






As a side note, we stopped at Murray's Place on South Dixie for a cocktail after dinner. The sign on the door says "Kettering's Best Kept Secret." In my opinion, that secret is that they have of the BEST karaoke around. I didn't say the most entertaining, I said the best. Mostly old timers that really know there way around a great tune. I tried to snap a crappy camera phone pic of the dapper-dressed fella singing all the great Motown jams, but like everything else my camera phone captures, it looked like a Big Foot spotting.
Almost every table was full, but it was far from a rowdy crowd. The waitresses were top notch, checking in on us at least half a dozen times in our visit, which was only just over an hour. They even came over and asked if we thought it was too warm and adjusted their thermostat accordingly. Between the two of us, we had two Miller Lites and two Jack & Diet doubles and it was only around $15.
Another thing to keep in mind, Murray's is open for lunch and serves up a great burger. It's no Tank burger, but it's a very close front runner in my book.



5 out of 5 shots!