Asian Spice Restaurant — Restaurant in Marana

21OCT2024: As with all other lunches here – this week did not disappoint. Hot & Sour soup a must, crispy won ton, perfectly cooked rice and the Beef and Broccoli was AS GOOD AS IT GETS! Josh and Josh on the service team, two class acts!

January 2024: Updated to a solid 5 stars. I am so thrilled I gave this place another chance and can only account for my previous subpar review based on their recent exit from COVID protocols. In fact, I have returned twice in January alone… and that is driving from central Tucson. Tip of the hat to Asian Spice, Hot and Sour & Egg drop soups so delicious. General Tsao’s chicken was wonderful, and the sesame chicken & beef and broccoli was fantastic. Thank you, Asian Spice, for restoring my faith that there is delicious Chinese food in southern AZ. See you soon and thank you.

05NOV2021: Drove out from Central Tucson just for this lunch...was not disappointed. Beef and Broccoli and Mongolian Beef - both so flavorful. The fried rice was absolutely delicious. Egg Flower soup, rich and flavorful. Although there is no dining in as of 11/2021 - there is a nice park (Crossroads) just across the street. My to go order had all the sauces, two cookies, chopsticks - wonderful lunch Chef Phillip - thank you. If I had one criticism on a 5 star review - it would be the egg roll...not certain made in house....if they are made in house, forgive me, because the rolling of the egg role itself is so perfect, it appears machine made. I may be...

The “crab puffs” that come with dinner had a tiny bit of cream cheese - where was the crab? The hot&sour soup was boring - taste was OK, but needs a couple of ingredients. The vegetable soup was watery, no taste. The kung pao chicken was great. The garlic eggplant (yu Hsiang) was great. The sweet and sour pork was a disaster - really hard pieces of obviously cooked earlier dry pork in too many layers of dry batter with sauce. Szechuan Shrimp was ketchuppy. No kick. Acoustic ambience matters - It was loud from the kitchen fan and busy cooking noise, customers lined up standing by our table, no waiter after the initial greet and serve. So, it doesn’t really merit a trip across town, but in a pinch, it’s Chinese homestyle cooking.

Take two - I returned two days later. This time, our server brought us plates. The first time, we couldn’t share food! The kung pao chicken, garlic eggplant were the same - excellent. In addition, we ordered shrimp chow mein and crispy tofu pad Thai. Both were very good. Service was better. One thing lacking is that ingredients are mostly standard vegetables with some water chestnuts and bean sprouts rather than Chinese vegetables, (bok choy, shiitake, gailan, black tree fungus). But maybe that is due to being in Tucson. In short, it’s hit and miss. If they shortened the menu and stuck to what they do best , it would be more impressive. I’ll...

The food and the service was great. It’s been difficult for my family to find a good Asian restaurant in the Tucson area, particularly in the Oro Valley area. But Asian Spice had high reviews, so we drove 30 minutes just to try it and I’m so glad we did. This instantly became our go-to restaurant for Asian cuisine. My wife comes from a Japanese family and we used to eat many different Asian cuisines up in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN area where there’s no shortage of great Asian food.

At Asian Spice, I had the Firecracker Chicken with fried rice. It’s spicy, but not too spicy where the heat overpowers the flavor. Perfect. The fried breading around the chicken pieces was crunchy. The portions were generous.

My wife tried the Pad Thai with shrimp. My daughter had the sweet and sour chicken, her favorite. They were both equally impressed with their meals.

There are Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian varieties. There may be more. I don’t have a good recollection of everything in the menu, but there’s a good variety for any appetite.

For appetizers, we had egg rolls and crab wantons. The egg rolls were flaky and delicious.

There aren’t many booths or tables for dining in, but it wasn’t too busy when we arrived, so we were able to dine inside. The restaurant does take-out as well. I will drive 30 minutes just to have this food again. I recommend giving Asian...