Succulent Shrimp with Vegetables at Golden Star Chinese Restaurant in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
I like the Chinese philosophy that food is medicine, which prompts me to look for Chinese restaurants when I look for places to live.
Salinas, California where I live now has several Chinese restaurants with Golden Star being closest to my home. They have delicious, reasonably priced food and friendly workers.
On my most recent foray to Golden Star, I tried their stir-fried shrimp with vegetables dish with steamed rice. I loved this dish, because Golden Star used Chinese 5-spice powder as part of the aromatic seasoning mix.
5-spice powder is made of a powdery crush of star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns, and fennel seeds. 5-spice powder is flavorful and a potent antioxidant at the same time.
Chinese cooks place 5-spice powder in hot peanut oil in a wok at the beginning of a stir-fry. Cooks then add green onions, garlic, and peeled and minced fresh garlic to the hot oil as a flavoring base in almost all stir-fried dishes.
When the scent of the garlic rises, cooks add in fresh vegetables to sear in flavor and color. Searing gives the vegetables a tender outside and sturdy interior. Vegetables prepared this way are visually appealing. Cooking the vegetables this way takes about 8 minutes and makes them blazing hot.
The vegetables that Golden Star uses in its shrimp vegetable dish showcase the organic produce that Monterey County grows: broccoli, mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, and cabbage (bok choy) are among this Monterey mix.
When the vegetables are steaming hot, cooks add in gray fresh shrimp, which curls into a circle and turns orange in the heat. About 4 minutes will cook the shrimp this way. To finish the shrimp vegetable dish,
Golden Star uses a classic Chinese sauce made with soy sauce, chicken broth, toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, and mirin (a sweet Chinese cooking wine). I like the flavor of 5-spice powder in this dish and think the finishing sauce enhances that flavor with salt and some sugar.
I drank a Peroni Nastro Azzuro beer with the shrimp vegetable stir-fry, because it reminded me of China’s Tsing Tao. A slightly sweet white wine would pair well with this dish as well due to the mirin wine in the sauce, which is slightly sweet.
Shrimp lovers looking for new flavors would probably enjoy the shrimp vegetable stir-fry with steam rice at Golden Star Chinese Restaurant in Salinas, California.
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Shrimp Vegetable Stir-Fry with Rice at Golden Star Chinese Restaurant in Salinas, California |
Photo and Text by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
