What's not to love about House of Chang?

It was a cold Friday night in Boston, I'd been working for nearly twelve hours straight, and the friend I'd been supposed to meet had canceled. As I boarded the red line for Harvard Square, I was exhausted, and grouchy, and fairly certain that at home, the cupboard would be bare. I couldn't muster the energy to think about cooking, let alone stop for groceries in the sub-freezing temperatures.

Sinking deeper into existential despair, I flipped indifferently through a copy of the Boston Phoenix that I'd grabbed on the way to the T. But as I skimmed Robert Nadeau's review of the new House of Chang on Concord St. in Cambridge, it suddenly became clear what I would do: go directly home and order everything he recommended. I didn't have the brain cells left to make choices of my own.

And I needn't have. His recommendations were spot-on: an order of scallion pancakes (yes, a little doughy and lacking in scallions, but so what); the Suan La Chow Show dumplings filled with pork and served with bean sprouts in a vinegary gravy; and the Yu Hsiang spicy eggplant (I ordered this "mild," but it still came with a pleasing amount of hot red pepper). Not only that, but I'd barely settled in when the doorbell rang with my (merely $20) delivery. And on an otherwise cold and disappointing night, this hot Chinese take-out meal became an utter blessing.