For 31 years, Jing Chuan has been a mainstay Chinese restaurant in Toledo.

The family-owned restaurant, with a parking lot in back, could be easy to pass, but the West Toledo shop appears to have quite the dedicated core of customers as indicated by the full house on two recent visits.

The eatery, which specializes in Hunan, Szechuan, and Mandarin styles of Chinese food, is warm and outfitted with traditional décor. As soon as we walked through the doorway — the doors are blacked out from the outside — one of my dinner guests smiled and said something like, “This is awesome.”

Awesome, indeed.

MENU: Jing Chuan

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On the first visit, friends and I were seated at a table, tucked into the farthest corner of the packed dining room. Our server was quick and courteous.

Actually, if I may go on a quick tangent: The service at Jing Chuan was unparalleled, especially on our first visit. The woman who waited on our table made frequent stops — but not too often as to feel we were being bothered — and, I felt, really went out of her way to make sure we were happy and comfortable.

The woman, whose name I, regrettably, did not get, brought us extra appetizers and food to fill the belly of our littlest, and loudest, dining companion — all free of charge.

We went a little overboard on the appetizers, ordering sizzling rice soup ($9.95, which served four adults), kuo teh ($6.25), shrimp toast ($6.95), and a spring roll ($1.79).

Of all the predinner foods, we — collectively — liked the soup best. The light broth was the perfect accompaniment for the crispy rice, fresh vegetables, baby shrimp, and pieces of chicken.

The spring rolls, which are stuffed with shrimp, beef, and chicken, also received high marks (this was the appetizer we got extras of). Where Jing Chuan missed, though, was on the shrimp toast — with small portions, burned bread, and, as one diner remarked, an “unpleasant tang” — and the kuo teh. The kuo teh, basically a meat-filled dumpling, were tasty, but quite chewy, which was off putting to some.

A fun note about Jing Chuan: The restaurant has a really unique cocktail menu, including a few drinks that you’d more so expect at a tiki-themed bar. One guest ordered the Zombie ($7.25), a triple-rum drink, which was served in a tall Buddha glass. How can you go wrong? (Probably by ordering more than one, but I’ll just mind my own business.)

Dinner, on both nights, was full of superstar dishes. The Szechuan pork ($10.95), was a balanced spicy-sweet dish; we expected it to have a heftier spice level, so if you're hankering for something with extra heat, you might consider a different dish or ask for extra spice.

The Mongolian Stars ($13.95) featured lightly fried chicken, shrimp, and beef in a slightly sweet sauce, mixed with onions, garlic, and crispy rice straws. Everything in this dish tasted perfectly fresh with a neither too sweet nor too thick sauce. The restaurant’s namesake dish, Jing Chuan chicken ($12.50), was brought to the table with “extra chicken and sauce,” the server said, so I could take some home.

That would have been great if only I’d been able to stop myself from eating the entire dish. The sauce was sweet, but did not overwhelm the small pieces of lightly fried chicken. On another night I tried the Sesame Beef ($13.75), and was underwhelmed. I found several pieces to be fatty and chewy. It was, frankly, the lowest point of the experiences.

The Snow White chicken ($10.95) is gluten free, which was important for one gluten-intolerant diner. The vegetables could have been cooked better in this dish, but overall it was prepared as ordered and delicious.

The hot and sour soup ($5.95), if you really like it hot, was a winner. The spice was complemented with sweet notes, and my friend’s nose stopped short of running. It was packed with shrimp, tofu, mushrooms, carrots, and other vegetables. The Hunan shrimp ($13.50) was lightly breaded and paired with very green broccoli and zucchini; the veggies were crisp and the meaty-tasting sauce was spicy, but not overly so.

Save room for desert, if you can. Skip the prepackaged fortune cookies, or at least take them home for later, and order some of the house-made macaron. You can buy a bag of four ($7) or a sleeve of 10 miniature macarons for $12. Or you could buy both.

The macarons were light and fresh, and came in an array of flavors — strawberry, raspberry, salted caramel, chocolate, vanilla, green tea, and several others. We ate them so fast we hardly remember.

The macarons have their own Instagram account: @jolie.co.

Contact Bill of Fare: fare@theblade.com.

First Published July 7, 2016, 4:00 a.m.