Chinese Cooking with a home-style flare

At the Dyker Heights restaurant Fortune Cookie, the standardtake-out Chinese food takes a back seat to a more vibrantcollection of unique twists on American-friendly offerings as wellas dishes you’d find in an authentic Chinatown eatery.

Occupying a spacious corner building at 13th Avenue and 76thStreet for the past 31 years, Fortune Cookie was founded by TomPoon, a Hong Kong transplant and Queens resident, who quicklyexpanded to a large restaurant, complete with party room and now asushi bar. The sushi bar – complete with trained sushi chef – wasadded by Poon’s nephew, Jason Wong, who took on managerial dutiestwo years ago after Poon passed away.

Wong says that he and his family try to make sure the food atFortune Cookie stands out by having an open kitchen where Ming,their chef since 1980, steams, fries and sautés everything in frontof your eyes, if you care to watch. They also use seafood and otheringredients purchased fresh every day, and make everything fromsauces and egg rolls to Peking Pork and fried shrimp in-house.

The steamed dumplings ($4.65) were the most stuffed versionwe’ve ever seen, with a thick yet fragile white dough purse full ofvegetables or pork that pack a zesty punch. Another form ofdumplings came as sesame-coated chicken puffs ($1.65), which arebest eaten with a dollop of duck sauce.

The egg rolls, crispy on the outside, were some of the finest wehave tasted. In fact, fried is something that Fortune Cookie doesquite well. By avoiding exorbitant amounts of oil or salt, (allfood is prepared without the addition of MSG), dishes like GeneralTso’s Shrimp ($15.70) have a light-handed approach closer totempura.

For non-meat eaters, any noodle dish on the menu can be madevegetarian-friendly, such as the vegetable lo mein ($4.50 for apint, $8.40 for a quart) and vegetable chow fun ($4.70/$9.15) – thelatter a tasty dish of pea shoots, broccoli, julienned carrots,onions and leeks mixed with wide noodles.

The sauces are also winners, with the one enveloping the PekingPork ($9.25 take-out, $11.25 eat-in) making this dish a menuhighlight. Wong says the ingredients used are not the same as inPeking Duck, which tends to be a fattier dish. There is almost anAmerican barbecue quality to these succulent pieces of pork. Thisis the kind of entrée you crave long after the meal is over.

Another homemade sauce that surprised was the creamy off-whiteconcoction used on the large Grand Marnier Shrimp ($15.70) whichare fried in a light batter. The tasty crustaceans come surroundedby fresh steamed broccoli and orange slices that provide a usefulcrunch and sweetness to end the meal.

FORTUNE COOKIE

7604-6 13th Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11228

718-680-0606

Sit-in, Private parties, Sushi/Sashimi Bar

Free delivery on orders $10 minimum, within 1.5miles

Sun.: Noon to 10:45 p.m.

Mon.-Thurs: 11 a.m. to 10:45 p.m.

Fri.-Sat.: 11 a.m. to 11:45 p.m.

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