At the old restaurant I remember that the freshly cooked meals from the dinner menu were very good. When the buffet opened at the new restaurant I tried it at least a couple of times, and was so disappointed it caused me to give up on the restaurant for quite a while.

When I went back to Dynasty I had learned a lot about Chinese food and no longer ate from buffets, and thus found that some pretty good meals could come from the kitchen. One dish I liked was the Home Style Bean Curd, an item not listed on the menu but that they were able to make on my request. This was not the best version of home style bean curd I have ever had, but the tofu was cooked correctly, the sauce was good (but rather strong on garlic), and it included a good selection of vegetables.

The next step in my Chinese food evolution was to ask for traditional Chinese cooking, realizing that Americanized dishes always tend to be disappointing even if the restaurant has a good cook. At Dynasty I asked if the cook specialized in any regional Chinese dishes, and I was told that he was Cantonese. I was further informed that he could prepare Pan Fried Noodles cooked the traditional Cantonese style, although I could not find out if any other dishes were available. The pan fried noodles, though, were quite good with the ends slightly burned, the interior being crispy until the sauce soaked through, and the whole dish being prepared the way in which I have been accustomed in Cantonese style restaurants. The dish came with brown sauce while I probably would have preferred white, but the large amount of ginger and garlic made this quite a good sauce (in contrast to the tofu that I thought had too much garlic, it seemed quite an enhancement to the flavor in this dish). The chef makes the dish with shrimp, beef, and chicken, with two out of the three being good quality. The beef was so tough it was hard to chew, and was the major flaw in the dish. This was a thoroughly enjoyable dinner with only a couple of plates I have eaten at Joy Luck in contention with it as the "best Chinese food in Las Cruces."

Dynasty does not have a lot of the more exciting Chinese dishes such as clay pot dishes, noodle soup, dim sum in carts, etc. (although there is some dim sum in the buffet that does not look all that appetizing), and I would not really expect to find these items in Las Cruces. As demonstrated to me, though, they are willing to cook items not on the menu if they can, and they can prepare a limited number of meals that are not only good quality, but would be worthy of large city Chinatown restaurants. It is only the choice of these items that is lacking, not the quality.