Friday, November 30, 2012

Pretty Yung Ting

It's so hard to find a good Chinese restaurant on the road.  Most of the time we just wing it, like we did when we found this place in the strip mall of a parking lot we chose to shut down in for the night.  We had an oversized load and had to pull over at sunset, and this place provided dinner.

I grew up in New York, eating a certain style of Chinese food.  Likely not Chinese as people in China know it, and maybe not even the kind of Chinese served in different cities across the country, like San Francisco's Chinatown.  But since I have a certain idea of what I like, and recently have been spoiled by Sammy’s in New York City, I'm having a real hard time with the fact that we can't just pull into a place and get what I want.

Restaurant ratings do me no good either, because I'm sure the people in this town (who are likely the people rating it), would give it better scores than it deserves because they just don't know any better.  Looking at Yelp! or even Urban Spoon is not always going to yield the best reviews if they don't know from good Chinese.  If they've never eaten at Sammy's, or somewhere similar, they have no idea that what they're calling an eggroll or a crab rangoon is nowhere near what a good eggroll or crab rangoon should taste like.

There are some cities we've been to time and again, where we have restaurants we know and like, whether a local chain or an independent hole in the wall.  And a lot of them have truck parking.  Well, I should say where we've been creative with truck parking, since if we want to eat there we have to figure out a way to park nearby.  Sammy's doesn't have any truck parking since it's located in the West Village of New York City, but it's worth the bus ride, train ride, and several blocks of walking it takes to get there.

I'm beginning to think it's time to start noting which places have the kick ass eggrolls, crab rangoons and Chow Fun.  Yeah, that's what I'll do, I'll make a list of worthy Chinese restaurants across the country! 

Ones with truck parking, of course.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
2011: How To Get Kids To Eat Vegetables
2010: Back In The Saddle
2009: Logging Lots Of Miles
2008: Apples, Fudge And Homemade Jam
2007: Eddie Hick Runs Deep Friday
2006: If You Can’t Make It To France
2005: I’m Sleeping With Someone New

4 comments:

Gil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gil said...

I'm sure that when you were growing up in New York you were eating Cantonese style Chinese food like I did before you. Now there are restaurants with Chinese people from areas of China other than Canton and their style of cooking is different. Kind of like comparing a delicious New York (Neapolitan style) pizza with one of those loafs of bread that they call pizza in Chicago. Now I want some egg drop soup!

Marlaina said...

When I was screening MacGyver for his future potential as a mate, I took him to a Chinese restaurant to check his adventurousness. I love all kinds of crazy things, like chicken feet! while he doesn't, he lets me eat it without rolling his eyes.

He looked at the menu and asked me if I wanted Sum Yung Gai. For a couple of seconds, I thought, I don't know that dish. Hehe.

The Daily Rant said...

GIL: I think you're right about that. In NY, all the Chinese places were basically the same and we didn't know any different. I still like that food, but I will venture out and try some other stuff when I can't get what I'm used to.

MARLAINA: I'm not adventurous enough to try chicken feet - although I did have alligator once. I have a hard enough time allowing Ed to eat a tuna melt sandwich in front of me. I do a lot of face scrunching (the ewww! look) when he does. I can't believe you fell for the Sum Yung Gai thing. :)