This Website's Breath Smells Like Hunan Chicken
Let's all give a hearty bon voyage to the Volumen, who are about to embark on a most unprecedented adventure: Tour:Baltik! in which the Missoula heartthrobs take their hijinx on an eleven-day swing through Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania! It's just about the most damn-hell-ass cool thing ever, and I'm jealous as hell of my palz Josh and Andy who get to go along as Baltic liaisons (Andy having been a Fulbright scholar in Finland; Josh having been in the Peace Corps in Latvia). Check the Volumen website for intermittent remote updates from The Land of... All That Stuff That The Baltic States Are Noted For.
Last night Glenda and I were eating dinner at our friends Matt and Laura's house. Laura was making fun of Matt 'cause he likes to eat at this shitty fish fry pit, and every time he does, he feels like ass afterward. Glenda of course wasted not a second in jumping in to tell them about a similar proclivity of mine to eat at this shitty Chinese food trough in Lakewood called Ming Hin. (There are about 400 such Chinese buffets in the Denver metro area, and 98% of them are named with some combination of the words China, Express, Panda, Golden, or Dragon. Students of combinatorial math will note that this yields only 25 possible names, but you get the idea. I'm sure your town is the same).
Ming Hin is especially foul. It's in this decrepit strip mall, very poorly lit, and looks like it hasn't been vacuumed since the mid 1980s. And if you frequent these types of restaurants, you know the typical fare: everything very soggy, overcooked, flaccid versions of overstarched Americanized Chinese food. It's kind of a long-standing joke about these places (but poignant nonetheless) that, aside from the people working there, you never see an authentic Chinese person in there. And for those customers that want to toss a bit of cross-cultural variety in their dinner, the buffet features Amurikan classix such as mac 'n' cheese, hot dog segments wrapped in bacon, and a pizza that, it should be noted, most resembles that fake vomit you used to get at Spencer Gifts, in both appearance and texture. The actual Chinese food, or what passes for it, all has this overwhelming red aura to it, kind of like those photos of food from the 1950s where, for some reason, they jacked up the red values in the printing process.
It's also dead quiet in Ming Hin. Not only is there no background music, but nobody talks because they're too busy shoveling heaps of food into their pieholes. Moreover, if you eat out a lot, you're no doubt familiar with the Silent Couple archetype: you know, the (usually) older man and wife that go out to restaurants and have absolutely nothing beyond maybe a passing mumble to say to each other, so they spend all night just looking around. So all you hear at Ming Hin is the sound of forks tinging against plates and people taking in outsized amounts of food.
They have a really annoying way of seating you at Ming Hin. The place could probably seat a couple hundred people; it's a good sized place. But even if the place is almost empty, the hostess insists on seating you right next to the other people. I view this as some sort of residual Maoist tendency to keep things orderly and egalitarian (it also reminds me of the peculiar psychological characteristic of many people who, allowed to pick their own seat in a near-empty restaurant, will invariably pick a table within ten feet of me. But that's a whole 'nother diatribe.).
Like our friend Matt and the fish fry pit (which he describes as "a step below Long John Silver's"), I invariably feel like merde after a trip to Ming Hin. And it's not really a sickening feeling, just a general listless malaise from overeating and too much starch. But I still go back there for some reason. Not very often, maybe two or three times a year. I don't know what it is about the place that keeps calling me back, 'cause it doesn't even begin to pass my basic restaurant pre-qualification calculus (the food sucks; it's way too quiet and way too dusty and dingy, the cruel seating arrangement).
But Ming Hin (and other buffet places) do serve a valuable, if strictly utilitarian, purpose: to fill up one's feedbag for a minimal fee with little to no waiter distraction, and minimum time expenditure. When I go to Ming Hin, I get a newspaper and order a Sprite, and fashion some quickie makeshift earplugs out of napkins to tune out the deathly silence. Then after a quick, economical trip to the buffet, I go to my assigned seat, put my head down, and try to shovel as anonymously as possible. And I never look up. (FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T LOOK UP! To look up might cause you to have to make eye contact with another human in the restaurant and thereby acknowledge the oppressive and abject drear in which we all inexplicably find ourselves!)
I might make a second trip to the buffet, but in an effort to avoid worsening the certain post-prandial listlessness, I will assiduously forswear a third trip. Moreover, hard-won experience has taught me to avoid any type of dessert in a buffet place.
It's not a pleasant or relaxing experience in any way, but sometimes it's exactly what a man requires.
Oh yeah, it should also be noted that Glenda will not set foot in Ming Hin. On two occasions that I can recall, she has dropped me off there and gone in search of more haute cuisine such as Arby's.
======================================================
Denison-Kimball Trio- Neutrons
If one ever finds oneself in Portland, check out my favorite local purveyers of the cheap chinese buffet--The Golden Dragon. (yes, they combine two of the aforementioned monickers.)
At lunchtime 5 clams gets you all the general sao, sweet and sour, beef and broccoli, and soft serve ice cream (including syrupy toppings) one can stomach. Not to mention curious side dishes like onion rings and jello--free soft drinks too. I think dinner is 6 or 7 bucks.
You can spend the money you save at the buffet on Pepto and barf bags--though I haven't honked yet. Knock on wood.
Cheapeater
- Honknspew September 02, 2003 13:37Jenn and I used to go to the china garden in msla all the time for the same reasons. It is a bit cleaner and has more people, plus Barbie Beaton used to work there. Same nasty color copy photos on the wall, same type of strip mall.
Nothing super special, but pretty good on a really cold night. Nice sweet service. Good portions. Good Asian food is hard to find in the sticks + they usually don't have cold beer.
I will not eat buffet style meals. They tend to be cold.
Always order entrees so the food is HOT. Always order something standard, not funky or special order.
A good choice is something you can say- like #4!
It has to be hot or I'll send it back. I figure if they can't get it out hot then it isn't worth coming back. My buddy Tom used to work at a real china panda bear type joint in sea-town and
those woks could smelt iron if they wanted to - chickens strung up in the back too. Real deal. That food came out
so hot it burnt and hurt your mouth - it was great!
My grandpa was a hell of a cook (cira 70's) and he always used to wear this apron around the house that said "Cooking is a Bitch"
That pretty much sums it up.
- Kingd September 02, 2003 20:59Please tell me that's not your actual dinner plate, and that you didn't eat a deviled egg off a Chinese buffet, for God's sake!
- Dr. Science September 03, 2003 15:32Please tell me that's not your actual dinner plate, and that you didn't eat a deviled egg off a Chinese buffet, for God's sake!
Yeah, I got that photo off the web. I really wanted to find a photo of Chinese food with some really outrageous red tint to it, but no luck.
A good choice is something you can say- like #4!
Totally. With some of the more authentic Chinese joints, an Amurkan needs numbers to convey what he wants. Also, so many of the Chinese places have menus that are like 18 pages long, so you end up saying, "uh, I'll have the #244 please. And a side of #17"
free soft drinks too
Yo? Yo! That's awesome, and not only for the obvious reason. Having free soft drinks removes the chief controversy at buffets: whether to leave a tip. Well, that is, assuming that you get to serve yourself the soft drinks. If they got servers running drynx, the controversy remains, but if, like the soft-serve, you get to serve them ya-self, why then, what possible reason is there to leave a tip?
Well, aside from the obvious humanitarian gesture of subsidizing the meager incomes of the poor $2.13/hr employees...
- Mudge Kaul September 03, 2003 21:53We have the Dragon Wall, the King Buffett, and Golden China, which is the lone establishment with no buffet service. The two buffet places have a very similar lineup as far as the menu goes, only really differing in color. They both have the extended Americanized version, as well. Chicken nuggets, onion rings, fries, apple cobbler, etc. I think there's a full salad bar, but I can't remember.
The one thing I remember is the Dragon Wall's "sweet and sour" sauce's color, a very strange bright red. Rick thought it tasted like cranberry juice or something. Vanek frequently askes me if I have gone "Wallin" lately. Not a bad place really, always very clean and well lit. Also, I think you can by a special to go dish for 4.00 at lunch and pile as much stuff in that thing as possible.
Krista won't eat here for some reason. Oh well, more General Tso's chicken for me!
- nate September 04, 2003 02:14My days of the cheap Chinese buffet are all but over. Too many bad experiences finding hidden treasures in my food such as bird beaks,band aids, and the occasional tinsel strand. Not to mention the time in the head after a buffet has decided to "not agree" with the old bowel system.
- Capn. Hook September 04, 2003 04:38Call me a snob but the only Chinese food you'll find me putting anywhere near mustache has got to be from a high end place. Recently my old man had a hankering for some Chinese. And wanted to take me to some Panda type affair, not really wanting to spend the rest of the afternoon hunkered down on the hoop, I declined. Finally, he persuaded me to go to a high end Chinese restaurant with him trying to end my boycott of Chinese cuisine. I folded and man were my taste buds dancing. They had this shrimp dish that was made with a Gran Mariner sauce with walnuts that blew my Aquasocks off.
Yale, didnt you do a shift or two at the legendary Golden Pheasant in Missoula?
- stets September 04, 2003 11:18Yale, didnt you do a shift or two at the legendary Golden Pheasant in Missoula?
Wow! You have an unbelievably astute memory, my friend! I was gonna bring it up earlier, but I honestly couldn't remember the name of the place. I knew it was Golden something...
Yeah, the same week I got fired from Goldsmith's in '91, I got dishwashing jobs at the Old Town Cafe and at the Golden Pheasant. I worked there for one night, and all I remember is how disgusting the kitchen was. Worse than that of the Palace Cafe, if you can believe it. I couldn't bring myself to go back the next night, so about two hours before my shift, I called in from a pay phone at Southgate Mall and told them I was quitting. They didn't seem to care at all.
Was that place legendary? I never set foot in there before or since my one shift (and to apply for the job I suppose), so I couldn't attest to anything about it except the ptomaine conditions in the kitchen.
Then of course it became Feruqi's, which, because of the appearance of its clientele, I like to call "90210-qui's".
- Varf Kaul September 04, 2003 11:47Stets- let me plumb the depths of your formidable memory again. Or anyone else who knows the answer...
What the hell was the name of that weird bar on Front St. right next to the taxi station (not the Top Hat; the other direction)? You kinda had to go into an office building to get to it. There wasn't a single window in the place, and it seemed to cater largely to a redneck/softball crowd.
- Zidd Kaul September 04, 2003 11:52I think you're talking about The Boardroom, but I could be wrong. I think I only went there once.
D
Oh, and both the drinks and ice cream are self-serve at the Golden Dragon, so the tipping definitely falls in the "personal choice" column. Come to think of it, I've never tipped. Man, I'm a cheapass.
- Drinkr September 04, 2003 14:10Ah yes, the Boardroom. Thank you, masked stranger.
Also, thanks to Nonfat Nat Cundy for jacking up the red values on the Chinese food photo to an appropriate level. Nat also passed along the following link, which contains possibly the most disgusting photo I've ever seen in my life.
http://poetry.rotten.com/weightlifter/
- Fruc Kaul September 04, 2003 22:28HOLY SHIT!
I really wasn't sure what I was seeing in that picture until I read the text. That poor guy! It gives an entirely new meaning to the phrase "a pain in the ass!"
- Amers September 05, 2003 15:43