“Best Dim Sum” is part of the restaurant’s name. OK Dim Sum might be more appropriate.

This place has scared the hell out of me for nearly 29 years.

That’s how long I’ve been driving past it, usually as I turn left onto South Orange Blossom Trail from Michigan Street heading for the on-ramp to Interstate-4. It’s a route I’ve taken probably thousands of times. And most of those times I’ve been conscious of glancing at the freestanding boxy building with the yellow plastic sign across the top, just over the windows clad with metal bars, with the name China Palace Restaurant and a couple of Chinese characters.

Who goes there? I wondered. What must it look like inside? Do people really eat there? And then I’d turn my attention to the traffic ahead and gird myself for the only thing scarier, a drive on the moving hell that is I-4.

But like I said, I’ve been passing China Palace for almost 29 years, ever since I moved to Central Florida to begin reviewing restaurants. Nearly three decades in a town of fickle diners. A new question began to needle me: How has it lasted so long?

We’re in the midst of the Lunar New Year festival, which began on Saturday. And since this is designated the Year of the Rooster, I decided to stop being so chicken.

So this time I made the left hand turn from Michigan Street onto Orange Blossom Trail and then veered right into one of the parking spaces directly in front of China Palace.

It’s easy to overorder at Chuan Fu, the new restaurant from the owners of Chuan Lu Garden. The menu – which is maddeningly unstructured – is a many-paged picturebook of enticing items. But the photos can’t really indicate just how delicious the food is, nor do they show proper scale – the portions are more than generous.

Chuan Lu Garden is the area’s first Chinese restaurant to specialize in food of the Sichuan — or Szechuan, if you prefer — province. In a very general sense, that means hot. Really hot. Be sure to order something with the sichuan peppercorn for a unique heat experiment. Everything is very good, but you must also have some of the hand-pulled noodles.

Note: Chuan Lu Garden is located within Ginza Japanese restaurant.

The name Hawkers makes sense once you know the concept, and it only sounds odd if pronounced by someone with a Boston accent.
The idea behind this charming little eatery is to present an array of dishes the type of which might be sold — hawked — by individuals who stake out space on the sidewalks and streets of various Asian cities but with, you know, stricter health department guidelines.
I’m resisting the urge to describe the dishes as tapas-like, but most of the menu items are “small plate” in nature. And the best way to experience Hawkers Asian Street Fare is the same as you would a tapeo, except instead of doing a tapas crawl, you might virtually wander these Asian streets and sample a number of delectable items. Try the banh mi sliders (I had the duck version; delicious) and the five spice pork choplettes. The curry Laksa is a wonderful and colorful bowl of myriad flavors with chicken, shrimp and big fat egg noodles.

I’m glad I stumbled upon Hong Kong Alley’s Kitchen. I almost took a different route that day and I might never have noticed it. I’m glad I took the right fork in the road.

Decent Chinese food that ranges from the mundane (pot stickers) to the unusual (preserved eggs).

Lu Garden is a compact, unassuming restaurant in a small strip mall on Conroy Winermere Road between Kirkman road and Dr. Phillips Boulevard. It seems the space was previously occupied by a business called Magic Wok, but Magic Wok apparently went poof.

Once a very good Chinese restaurant, Ming’s Bistro has had an ownership change and the quality has flagged. It is not currently recommended.

Ingredient selection is high tech, effectuated via ordering kiosks at the quick-serve restaurant. So in that sense, the Mongolorian is an assemblage concept – choose your starch, choose your protein, your vegetables and sauces and anything else you can think of that might make your dish ultimately inedible.