The Gossiping Gourmet:

In the olden days, if you wanted food delivered to your door, it had to be Chinese or pizza. Then for a short while, you could get almost anything delivered from the various restaurant delivery services, but nowadays, it seems to be pizza, or pizza or else pizza that you can get brought to your home or office.

Well, for those of you who like to eat your moo gai pan on the couch in front of the TV, or munch on dumplings at your desk, rejoice! Peony — healthy Chinese cuisine, has come to Laguna and opened in the food court on Broadway. They deliver all day long, every day of the week for a very nominal fee.

Their cuisine might best be described as hybrid-Chinese. In fact, unless you go to Garden Grove or Monterey Park, all Chinese food in the area is actually a hybrid.

Peony mixes in a touch of Thai, a hint of Korean, a bit of Japanese and a whopping dose of healthy.

They use considerably less oil, and the oil they do use is either canola or, by request, olive. Their noodle dishes may be ordered with organic whole grain noodles and brown rice is offered as an alternative to white. Chicken dishes feature white meat only and although they have beef, there is no pork. They use deep-sea fish, wild shrimp and only fresh fruit and vegetables, nothing canned.

So for something different and for us to evaluate the experience that you can anticipate, we decided to have dinner delivered. (You also have the option of picking it up or eating it outdoors in the food court.)

Our appetizer was pan-fried chicken dumplings. These were lightly fried and stuffed with minced white meat chicken seasoned with ginger and a smidgen of napa cabbage. This mildly flavored filling didn’t have the usual complement of other chopped vegetables that add extra layers of color and flavor, but they were plump with chicken. The wrapping was nice and chewy — not greasy, as fried dumplings often are.

The Thai style hot and sour soup (tom yum) exemplifies the hybrid nature of the menu. This is definitely not the spicy, sweet and sour tom yum you know, but you might be pleased to make its acquaintance. It seemed like a Chinese chef was attempting to cook Thai food.