FOOD REVIEW: Kaleyard for Healthy Chinese Cuisine

I always appreciate at it when a restaurant makes it easier to choose healthy food. That is why I was so interested to try Kaleyard. We received a menu in the mail from them as an advertisement, recently. They offer “healthy and tasty Chinese food.” On the menu, many of the items list their calories and saturated fat content. Unfortunately, the portion sizes are not indicated, so it is not clear how much food corresponds to the calorie level, but it still is a helpful guideline in comparing foods on the menu.

The night of the first Presidential debate, we decided to order the food to go and eat it while watching the show. We looked over the menu, which is pretty extensive. There are a large number of lunch specials that are offered from 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. There are several soups, such as wonton, hot and sour, chicken with vegetable, egg flower, tofu with vegetable, chicken corn soup and noodle soup with your choice of meat (chicken, barbecued pork or seafood).  Salad choices include a Chinese chicken, shrimp salad, and vegetable tofu.

The rest of the menu is too big to describe in detail, but there is a section of beef, chicken, seafood, pork and vegetable entrees. There is also a section of egg foo young, chow mein, and moo shu. You can go to Kaleyard.com for the complete menu. We chose the Kung Pao chicken, sweet and sour shrimp and house special chow mein. We called the order in and were told it would be ready in about 20 minutes.

The restaurant is located at 31341 Niguel Road at Clubhouse in Laguna Niguel. We headed over and went inside. The restaurant is small, with lots of tables with little red booths. We picked up our food, which was ready on time.

We took it home and the food was packed in plastic containers. It was all quite hot and looked attractive. The portions were pretty large and all three dishes were large enough to share with at least one other person.

The Kung Pao chicken and the house special chow mein were both listed as lite and healthy on the menu. We enjoyed the Kung Pao chicken, which is bits of chicken with peanuts and peppers in a spicy sauce and came with a container of steamed rice. This was our favorite of the three dishes.

For us, the chow mein lacked flavor and the noodle texture was quite soft.  Perhaps this is because it is lower in fat than we are used to. The sweet and sour shrimp had large, chunks of pepper, pineapple and onion and was in a sweet, light sauce and was pretty good. It also came with a container of steamed rice.

I appreciate the effort to make the food lower in fat and calories and that the food was ready on time and was quite hot, even after the drive home. I think we would not order chow mein again.

Kaleyard is open Monday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and 4-9 p.m., and from 4-9 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. You can eat in or get take out or have delivery on orders of $25 or more.

I give Kaleyard 2 ½ Patches out of 5.