The Flower Drum is a Chinese opera known to have existed since 1695. The music features a variety of strings and woodwinds. The production originated in the Hunan province.

This, of course, is according to the back of the menu at the Flower Drum Chinese-American cuisine, 49 S. Byrne Rd., in South Toledo. Although the business seems to grasp at Chinese traditions and decor, Flower Drum most certainly caters to American taste.

Opening Flower Drum’s menu for the first time is like reviewing an answer sheet of a test on Asian-American cuisine. It’s quite extensive. The restaurant offers the more common dishes such as sesame chicken ($9.99) and Mongolian beef ($8.99) and the less common entrees such as chow san sien ($9.99), and squid with hot shrimp sauce ($10.99).

Encouraged by the waiter, I finally settled on the pepper steak dinner ($8.75) with a side of won-ton soup ($2.05 for a cup).

The pepper steak is featured at most American-Chinese restaurants. The entree was on Flower Drum’s menu served with peppers, onions, and tomatoes.

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Dwarfed in the dish by the abundance of green peppers and onions cooked to a crunch with white rice, the tomatoes seemed a bit out of place. And if you’re looking for steak and sauce quality, flank steak “beef” and soy sauce are decent, but not outstanding. But Flower Drum makes the right call listing the supplemental items in parentheses. Others who dislike tomatoes may be unhappy to find these love apples on their plate if they made the wrong assumption of ingredients when ordering.

With the won-ton, the soup was piping hot, had a soothing broth, and had an abundance of scallions, but included only two meager pieces of pork.

The strong hot tea served with the meal was from the Kroger down the road.

At Flower Drum, lunch specials are available until 3 p.m. An order of General Tso’s chicken ($7.25) included an accompanying side of soup. The breaded chunks of chicken in the General Tso’s meal lacked fat and the white meat was tender enough, but the sauce was disappointing. The tomato (I am beginning to see a theme here) and vinegar sauce seemed more at home served with french fries or chicken nuggets than as a sauce for a General Tso’s dinner. They tried to masquerade the taste of the sauce with chunks of pineapples, giving the meal more of a sweet and sour taste, but no spice. The chicken and rice soup helped assuage some of my gripes.

On another visit at dinnertime, the bird’s nest stir fry ($13) piqued my interest. The entree is only featured in the dine-in menu. A bird’s nest is a fried potato that usually is served as a bowl stuffed with the accompanying stir fry.

In Flower Drum’s case, the potato was flat, not rounded as a bowl, and buried by the scallop, shrimp, chicken, and beef stir fry with an eclectic array of vegetables.

I would have preferred the meal without the potato because the stir fry and rice were tasty enough.

Also sampled was the Szechuan spiced pork ($8.75), which came with heaps of bamboo shoots amid the other vegetables, mushrooms, and seasoned pork. The sauce was by far the most authentic compared with the selections in previous visits.

In the way of drinks, an array of beers ($2-$2.95), Fu-Ki sake wine served warm, and Fu-Ki plum wine served chilled ($2.75 for a white wineglass, respectively) help get diners in the spirit.

So if you’re mindful of what you order, the Flower Drum can serve as a good night out in South Toledo.

Contact Bill of Fare at fare@the blade.com.

First Published July 30, 2015, 4:00 a.m.