Joy Lucky

I don't know if it's a reference to the movie or if they just picked two random English words out of the dictionary, but Joy Lucky is a strange name for a restaurant. Typically the adjective precedes the noun in a phrase like this. Honestly that's the biggest complaint I have about the place. The food is good, but the name is bad. Now that I have that out of the way...

Joy Lucky is a small Chinese restaurant in Grove City. It is part of a small shopping strip. The interior is rather plain, suggesting that most of the business is take-out. I can't say that for sure, but if I had to bet, I'd put my money on more take-out business versus more dine-in business.

There are about six vegetarian items on the menu. The vegetable spring roll is the only vegetarian appetizer. You get one spring roll (the deep fried kind, not the rice-wrapped kind) with packets of soy sauce and sweet and sour sauce carrying the disgusting label "Duck sauce." The ingredients were vegan friendly, but I didn't eat it because the label said duck. The spring roll was crispy and mildly flavored. It was decent but hardly spectacular.

The Szechwan tofu, on the other hand, was very good. Pan-fried tofu triangles and vegetables were covered in the classic spicy brown Szechwan sauce that accompanies dishes of this particular cuisine type. The vegetables include broccoli, onions, carrots, mushroom, water chestnuts and pea pods, and the entree comes with the obligatory box of white rice. The portion is quite large.

The prices at Joy Lucky are cheap for entrees, appetizers and dessert. I took advantage of the 50 cent almond cookie upgrade. Since I only throw fortune cookies away, I got two fresh almond cookies for two quarters. My total bill was less than $10.

Joy Lucky