There's no real point in me continuing to review Chinese restaurants in my area other than that I enjoy doing it. I know most of these restaurants serve food that isn't exactly the most authentic representation of the culture they originally came from but they do reflect the culture of the area they are currently in and since I'm currently living in America I might as well discuss the eateries that I feel embody the concept of Chinese American fusion and/or hodgepodge cuisine. That's way too much of an explanation for doing nothing more than making some snarky comments about a couple of places I like to eat at but at least I can justify this whole exercise to myself.
A great place with a good menu and a friendly, casual atmosphere. Oddly, I'm only allowed to eat there on Friday. Somehow the routine in my life worked out so that I was stopping in for take-out only on Fridays without me even realizing it. When I visited the restaurant on a non-Friday for dinner the staff were so stunned to see me the hostess blurted out "It's not Friday, what are you doing here?" I've since learned my lesson and will only stop in at my appointed time so as not to disrupt the Feng Shui of China Inn.
A new restaurant that I haven't fully made up my mind about. The atmosphere was a nice mixture of contradictions with Wagner playing as background music and black velvet paintings of waterfalls adorning the walls. The woman working the front seemed nice enough but distracted, as if she was pondering the events in her life that had led her from her birth in mainland China and somehow brought her across the world to wait tables in Nowhereville, USA. Life's vicissitudes can bring about strange things so it's no wonder she was more absorbed in that than in seeing if I was ready to order or not.
Not only is the food good but it's plentiful. A typical serving is enough for a second meal or one really big meal if you eat like a crazy person. The primary restaurant is set up for take-out and the staff have adapted to it to a frightening degree. There have been a few times I've called up and scarcely stated my order before the person on the phone blurts out "thank you" and may or may not mention the price before they disconnect so they can get to work on my meal. You know you are dealing with professionals when they magically know your order and pick-up information before you do. They have always correctly filled my order but there's that flicker of hesitation in the back of my mind when I go in and pick up a stapled brown bag of something that, I am fairly certain, is what I wanted for dinner. A second restaurant has opened up recently that features in-store dining but I haven't tried that yet since I'm not sure the experience would be the same without the brief, harrowing and oddly enjoyable phone ordering session.
Since the restaurant is named "Great Wall" there is a large photo of the Great Wall inside the restaurant that is, for reasons I'm not certain of, illuminated from behind.
Going from their webpage there is a P.F. Chang's in every nook and cranny on the planet. Since it's a successful chain of restaurants the place is automatically suspect. The food itself is okay but when dining there you get the feeling you're paying 10% too much just for the ambiance, if you consider some Chinese statues and bric a-brac that looks like it came from Pier 1 ambiance.
Of all the Chinese chain restaurants out there this may be the worst. Hunkered down in the back of most food courts, Imperial Palace silently festers and waits for an unsuspecting customer to come by. It's the trap door spider of Chinese restaurants. If you're looking for Chinese food in the loosest sense of the term -or food in the loosest sense of the term- then you can try it out of morbid curiosity but otherwise avoid the place at all costs. Imperial Palace Express, it's what they're eating in Hell.
How exactly to restaurants come up with their names? Where is the magical balance between picking something that doesn't sound too Western -such as Panda Garden- or a name that becomes unintentionally funny when brought into a different culture -such as the unfortunately named Fook Yuen Seafood Restaurant. Jade Rivers sounds both exotic and serene, which isn't a bad image for an all you can eat buffet to have. For reasons that are beyond me a grocery store in the same business mall is promoting that it too has a Chinese buffet. Out of curiosity I checked the grocery store's dining selection and decided that with the slight selection unattractively displayed under a heat lamp Jade Rivers did not have anything to worry about. Why did the grocery store decide they needed to compete with the restaurant? Who eats dinner at a grocery store anyway?
Possibly the most disagreeable aspect of the restaurant is that it is located near a University so you often end up with the flotsam from campus as your dining companions. Taste of China is one of those restaurants that has been running the same sort of show for years if not decades, the sort of place where no matter what you order you seem to end up getting chicken cubes served in a funky brown sauce and chopsticks with the tag line "Welcome to Chinese Restaurant Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks. The traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and cultual." I have seen this wrapper around for years and in many different locations so it's safe to assume that someone, somewhere has cornered the market on restaurant chopsticks. If so, why haven't they bothered to correct the blurb on the front? Then again, if they don't have to bother to correct it, why should they?
Questions, comments, and dining suggestions can be sent to gleep9@hotmail.com. If you are done here head on back to either the Pop Culture or Main page.