Best Crab Rangoon in Columbus #9
Hello all, and welcome back to 'Toastmuncher Tuesdays' where I eat and review various crab rangoon around Columbus.
An update: I have new data for y'all to peruse! The excellent u/ImPickleRock and I collaborated on this map where you can see all the places people have recommended to me. The ones I have tried are color coded to correspond to their various categories - below average, above average, great, and best.
And here is a doc that lays out all of the data I have collected on the 'goons as well as some overall comments. Both documents will update weekly.
Both documents along with links to my other detailed reviews can be found here as well.
Let's get into it! This week, I took u/PotentialHabit7440 's recommendation and headed to Hunan Lion. Please read & enjoy!
Hunan Lion on Crown Plaza
6 Rangoon for $8.95
Filling: 4/10
Wrapper: 6.5/10
Sauce: 7/10
Value: 3/5
Overall: 20.5/35
Filling: This filling was… strange. I think it was unfortunately quite bland except for the flavor of onions. Generally, green onions are used in rangoon, but this filling had whole chunks of white onions which made for a weird texture. There weren't really any other flavors that I was able to detect except for a very faint flavor of crab (imitation, I saw it on their menu). No shade to imitation crab, but I need a stronger flavor of it for it to be a perk. I think the filling is in desperate need of some salt and needs some spices to give it a more complex flavor profile.
Wrapper: Y’all know how I feel about the triangle wrapper. I think they make for an improper filling to wonton ratio. That being said, I was actually pretty impressed with the amount of filling they were able to pack into this rangoon. The wonton was cooked very well and not too dense. It could have used a bit more flavor, but it was a fine vessel to carry the filling.
Sauce: I found the sauce to be the star of this dish. It was a sweet and sour sauce, emphasis on sweet. There was an almost tropical taste to it which I thought was very refreshing. It wasn’t knock out of the park stellar, but I still enjoyed it. It helped bring the entire rangoon up in my eyes. Where the filling was bland, dunking it in the sauce really helped to make it a tastier experience for me. Not unique, but it got the job done.
Value: This week, I came up with specific statistics to rank the value category. They can be found on my data spreadsheet. At $1.49 per rangoon, these get a 3.
Overall: As a whole, I wasn’t super impressed by these rangoon. I think a casual rangoon fan would find them tasty, and I wouldn’t discourage you from ordering them if you were eating at Hunan Lion, but compared with some of the rangoon I have tried, this is for sure not in the top category. A fairly bland filling with entire chunks of onion in it did not leave me wanting more, and the tasty sauce wasn’t enough to make up for it. Overall, they’re okay, but in my opinion, not worth going out of your way for.
Posted Mar 16, 2022, 1:32 AM UTC