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I don't know exactly how many, but there are maybe a dozen Chinese restaurants within a couple of miles of my house, all of them small places. Most of them are okay. At least two of them are really good. As of yesterday I learned there are at least three really bad ones.
My sister and I meet and go out for lunch once a week. Usually we go to places we've been before, but sometimes we get the urge to try something new. Last week, we wandered into a relatively new chain restaurant in a building vacated by an earlier chain restaurant. The Big Bear Dinner was a pleasant surprise. We'll probaby go back there. The Chinese restaurant we visited yesterday has seen the last of us.
It was advertised as inexpensive compared to other Chinese places which should have been a tip off. It is a buffet place so you'd think you could fine good things to eat. Indeed you could. The dishes ranged from pretty good to nasty. I had noticed that the quality was a little uneven, but I didn't have any big complaints until my sister started griping about one of the chicken dishes she's chosen that I hadn't. Then I bit into my egg roll. It was easily the worst egg roll I ever had, I think it was probably a day old and reheated. By the end of the meal it was noticeable that several of the dishes were pretty substandard. I was lucky and felt fine afterward. My sister got a queezy stomach from it. There is little point in reporting to anyone officially. The restaurant is in a bad location and probably wouldn't last long, even if the food were much better.
How the other two places have managed to survive I don't know. One has a sauce that tastes like a mixture of vinegar and kerosene with a little soy sauce added purely for coloring. The other, a major nationally advertised fast Chinese food chain, has safe, but pathetic tasting food I'd be ashamed to serve in my home. That chain place has the worst rice I've had at a Chinese restaurant. It's like sticky rice with lots of corn starch added so it will be much stickier and not taste quite right. The place has lots of customers and at the exact same intersection there are two Chinese restaurants with better food. It shows how easily people are fooled by advertising. If they'd just try either of the other places they'd never go back to the bad one.
I see there is a new movie opening with the Brothers Grimm as fantasy heroes. Who'd have thunk it? Nerdy academic linguists as big heroes. ;o)
My sister and I meet and go out for lunch once a week. Usually we go to places we've been before, but sometimes we get the urge to try something new. Last week, we wandered into a relatively new chain restaurant in a building vacated by an earlier chain restaurant. The Big Bear Dinner was a pleasant surprise. We'll probaby go back there. The Chinese restaurant we visited yesterday has seen the last of us.
It was advertised as inexpensive compared to other Chinese places which should have been a tip off. It is a buffet place so you'd think you could fine good things to eat. Indeed you could. The dishes ranged from pretty good to nasty. I had noticed that the quality was a little uneven, but I didn't have any big complaints until my sister started griping about one of the chicken dishes she's chosen that I hadn't. Then I bit into my egg roll. It was easily the worst egg roll I ever had, I think it was probably a day old and reheated. By the end of the meal it was noticeable that several of the dishes were pretty substandard. I was lucky and felt fine afterward. My sister got a queezy stomach from it. There is little point in reporting to anyone officially. The restaurant is in a bad location and probably wouldn't last long, even if the food were much better.
How the other two places have managed to survive I don't know. One has a sauce that tastes like a mixture of vinegar and kerosene with a little soy sauce added purely for coloring. The other, a major nationally advertised fast Chinese food chain, has safe, but pathetic tasting food I'd be ashamed to serve in my home. That chain place has the worst rice I've had at a Chinese restaurant. It's like sticky rice with lots of corn starch added so it will be much stickier and not taste quite right. The place has lots of customers and at the exact same intersection there are two Chinese restaurants with better food. It shows how easily people are fooled by advertising. If they'd just try either of the other places they'd never go back to the bad one.
I see there is a new movie opening with the Brothers Grimm as fantasy heroes. Who'd have thunk it? Nerdy academic linguists as big heroes. ;o)
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From:
cheap eats
One of the things that amazed me about Montreal was the quality of the food, and how hard it was to find a place at any price level that was actually bad. And last fall Ben and I discovered at little closet-sized place up in Saratoga called "Ravenous" http://www.skidmore.edu/studentorgs/skidnews/2001-04-13/features/ravenous.shtml that we really enjoyed.
I was there again recently, and not quite as impressed.. it is The Season right now in Saratoga, many of the locals have fled, and there was someone new at the griddle, maybe just for the night.
From:
Re: cheap eats
I'm a little more both critical and praising of small Chinese restaurants because they tend to be family run places. They don't change as much with the seasons.
From:
Re: cheap eats
I was thinking about a couple of things here, and post by a friend of mine on a play called _This Table_ and what different cultures, or families or people try to create in a space, or maybe this is more properly invite into a space.
It isn't really about the cost but more my wonder at how in certain places there is creation of great eats and soemthing else, the atmosphere is very neat.
Food is a asort of interesting item in general. It is a necessity but it is also attached to so many things.