Project Crab Rangoon: Episode 1

Since arriving on the West Side, I have been craving something I never really thought I would crave: Crab Rangoons.

Apparently native to New England, Crab Rangoons are "Chinese" food appetizers - cream cheese and crab inside a crispy deep-fried wonton roll. In Boston, you can find Crab Rangoons at just about every asian-themed restaurant: Thai, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese - doesn't matter. They all have 'em.

Here? I asked for Crab Rangoons at one restaurant and caused mass confusion. However, upon further investigation I discovered "Crab Cheese Puffs" and "Fried Crab Cheese Wontons" listed on a couple of Chinese restaurant menus in the area. This is when I devised Project Crab Rangoon.

Over the next few weeks, I will test all crab and cheese puff-like menu items at area restaurants, in the search for my old friend, the down-home Crab Rangoon. Rangoons will be graded on each of five characteristics:

1. Cream Cheesiness: smooth, rubbery, cheesy, or crumbly
2. Crabbiness: smell and taste of crab (not really important in the enjoyment of a rangoon, but seemed important to note)
3. Wonton Quality: crispy, thin, wafer-like, or thick and bubbly-surfaced
4. Wonton Shape: triangle rangoons (signature of the world's best rangoon producer, Kowloon in Saugus), or corners folded up to make a pretty little package, or haphazardly crinkled together
5. Duck Sauce (this seems to vary by coast, as well): orange-to-red coloring, consistency, thickness

Tonight's subject: Becky's Chinese Restaurant on College Ave, Rockridge (in Oakland).

Becky's seems like a new local restaurant, so they had something to prove. The results, however, weren't pretty.

1. Cream Cheesiness: absolutely disgusting. I'm not kidding, it was really bad - both in taste and consistency. Rubbery, not at all creamy, and tasting not at all like cheese, but like something gross. GRADE: D-
2. Crabbiness: aside from the pink flecks in the cheese, there was no evidence of crab presence. GRADE: C
3. Wonton Quality: light, crispy. Much more of a "higher class" wonton - such that you would see at thai restaurants, not your run of the mill chinese wonton. GRADE: B
4. Wonton Shape: the delicate little package, excellent presentation. GRADE: A-

5. Duck Sauce: Reddish, thin, not super-sweet. GRADE: C
OVERALL GRADE: D (this isn' really an average, but the cream cheesiness grade really overrules all others)

Plus, the fortune cookies were stale.

Becky's has lost one customer. Bummer, cuz they were close to home and no one seems to deliver Chinese food around here. The search for the perfect Bay Area Crab Rangoon continues!