As the child of working parents, I find myself constantly scavenging for leftovers in the refrigerator or cooking a narrow variety of food for myself, ranging from toast to french toast. After what became too routine, I recently found salvation in a completely different and more fortunate alternative.

Chef Xu’s Private Kitchen located in Saratoga serves authentic Chinese cuisine specially designed to provide affordable food for families with busy parents. While many choose to eat fast food or microwavable dinners, being the health freak I am, I could not bare to eat such unhealthy food.

Chef Xu’s is a family-style catering business that tries to provide healthy, clean dinners, which means less oil, less salt and absolutely no MSG. This family-owned business has a goal to provide assistance to families with no time to cook, but still want their children to be able to have a home-cooked dinner every day.

I found their mission to be genuine with good intentions, so I automatically trusted the quality of the food.

The ordering procedure is pretty simple: There is a set menu for every weekday of the month and one orders one day in advance. I found this system a little inflexible and challenging because I wouldn’t have much choice but to eat what they are offering that specific day.

The food is then either delivered to the customer’s house or it can be picked up. Each set menu is enough to feed four people and includes a meat entree, vegetables, a dish of meat and vegetables and rice for $23.

Individual dishes can also be purchased, but I would suggest simply ordering the full meal because each set has a nice balance of meat and vegetables, which satisfies all nutritional needs.
Specialities consist of Hangzhou stew duck in soy sauce, jellied pork leg and sesame green onion pancake.

Chef Xu cooks food from the Zhejiang Province, more specifically Huangzhou, which is known as the “land of fish and rice.” The cuisine is not greasy and is fresh and tender. The chef even flavors dishes with a special sauce.

I found this traditional view to be exact as a lot of the dishes are braised, resulting in tender and flavorful meat.

Normally, the problem with eating food not made in my own home is that I cannot trust how clean it is. Restaurant food is generally more expensive and has unbelievably high caloric value and fat—just check online, it’ll shock you. However, the food is made in another family’s kitchen, and the family acknowledges these concerns and holds the same values.

The food is generally pretty simple, and there is nothing extravagant about it. My mother could probably cook the same food, but the difference is that when time becomes such a scarcity, this truly becomes a good deal. For the little time I put in to order the food, I get quality food that is not detrimental to my health or my wallet.

Orders can be placed by emailing [email protected] or calling (408) 872-1410.