Oh, Baby.
When I see you laid out on that puffy red furniture, your back pressed into that quilted velour couch, your neck bent towards a plate of pot stickers, my mind races back to that summer of 2002 when we spent our days rising out of bed only to eat and shower and drink and prepare for sleep again.
But then I look around a little bit and it strikes me that the couches are just a ruse to make me forget that I haven’t eaten in a real Chinese restaurant — not a hole-in-the-wall noodle joint, which I have frequented often — but a real, serve-you-tea-before-you-ask, Chef-shows-up-at-the-table-after-dinner, face framed by fans and wall hangings, these-people-are-all-really-Chinese kind of Chinese restaurant, in about 12 years.
You know, the kind of restaurants that existed through the 1980s in towns all across America until a spate of China Kings and China Express and Shanghai China and Ming Buffets replaced all of the finery with takeout boxes, packets of duck sauce, universally similar lo mein, and tables that can be wiped down with the sleeve of your shirt.
I remember three such restaurants from my childhood. The best of them was the Tiki Tavern in Park City, in the Lancaster County, PA, shopping mall. It heralded our arrival with a five-foot-high golden Buddha statue and a bridge spanned over a stream that ran through the restaurant.
The Tiki Tavern took a hike in the early 1990s.
The 14 ft. Buddha statue at Kwan’s in Salem should be the first sign that the restaurant hasn’t been redecorated since the first big wave of small city Chinese restaurants a few decades back.
Thank god for that.
We weren’t terribly impressed with the cuisine at Kwan’s, which frequently wins Best Chinese in Salem’s annual best-of polls. The pot stickers looked like they had been stamped under someone’s foot, the noodle dishes were somewhat tasteless (no MSG!).
But oh, to have a place nearby that so completely takes you to another world! Not to China, per se, but to a dingy back alley of an American China town restaurant, the door leading into a smoky parlour filled with dubious characters, the guy in the hat, the one at the end of the bar who says he’s a businessman but has no business cards.
Really, someone needs to hold some meetings at Kwan’s. Where’s a hard-boiled detective fiction club when you need one. All the groups I have joined are meeting in places like Roth’s supermarket or in interchangeable sports bars downtown.
Yawn.
The Dems seem to meet at Kwan’s all the time. Check it out.
I’ve given up on finding good, authentic Chinese food in Salem. If you want good Chinese food you have to make the drive to Portland, or even better, to Richmond/Vancouver BC (the best in the NW). In Portland I like Shenzen:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/shenzhen-portland
Or Wongs King for dim sum:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/wongs-king-seafood-restaurant-portland
Lucky Strike is kind of a dive, but they have pretty good Sichuan dishes that are hard to find elsewhere.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/lucky-strike-portland
When I interviewed Jack Czarnecki of the Joel Palmer House he said he always gets Chinese when he goes into Portland. He’ll drive from Dundee for Peking duck.
P.S. Are you engaging in a bit of a ruse yourself, with “rouse?”
I know, right? But more importantly who’s the hottie in your picture?
Chinese food is a very difficult topic for someone who moved here from San Francisco. We tried the word-of-mouth method, asking around, and people in Salem are really nice but no one knew what the heck they were talking about when it came to Chinese food. We were given enthusiastic recommendations for a few places that turned out to be really awful. Then we ate at Kwan’s and the mussels made my husband sick. These things happen sometimes, but when my husband called the restaurant the next day to tell them about their bad mussels they absolutely denied the possibility and refused to accept responsibility. A simple and sincere apology would have satisfied us, but we got nothing and haven’t set foot in the place since.
It took us two years of searching to find Chan’s on Fairground Road, and we’ve stuck with them ever since. It’s not the best ever, but it’s the best in Salem as far as we can tell (and we’re wary about taking any more advice). May I suggest the pepper salted shrimp and chicken in orange sauce.
The moment we knew we were really on our own looking for good food here was when the Salem Monthly annual restaurant poll listed the Olive Garden as “best Italian restaurant.” I almost cried, it was so sad.
The Olive Garden gets that every year. At every poll. I’m sure Outback gets Best Steak. It’s just something I have to push past, and then frequent the places that do serve the best steak or Italian, and make sure I always recommend them to friends so they can possibly remain in business. It’s sad, but we can help, in our own way.
Mike, that’s my new friend Meredith. She seems to have a poet growing out of her neck.
I think Chinese has to be one of the trickier types of restaurants to take or make suggestions for. Most people have their own preferences when it comes to Chinese food.
Some people love the deep friend entrees with the gravies and sauces, some people like the authentic signature dishes and then there are the people like us who want a variety of vegetables, tender tasty meat and good spice and flavor in the sauces.
We used to go to Grand China on a regular basis until they closed, but now we head to Marco Polo when we get the urge for Chinese. The last time we were there, a man in the booth next to us said that he drives down from Portland to eat there. So there ya go . . .
Aw come on…you want good Chinese…go to China.
The American palate just isn’t bred for things that aren’t covered with a high fructose corn syrup based sauce. If you want subtlety and delicate flavors, you’re looking in the wrong country.
As a result, I agree completely with KandN, There are lots of varieties of “american chinese” food that will appeal to any number of persons, but don’t expect them to be true to recipe traditional Chinese dishes. Those simply won’t appeal to the American tastebud enough to support a business, hence we ‘american-ify’ it for a dumbed down palate.
I also agree with you about Kwan’s. I’ve gone a couple of times and just couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. Sure, the water filtration apparatus was impressive, but if that is the claim to fame it should tell you something.
So, don’t feel bad that the Chinese food you like isn’t really Chinese, Now if I could just find some decent Italian and for the love of God, are there no Greeks out here. I miss my Gyros and Souvlaki!
Pineshark, Have you tried Macedonia http://eatsalem.com/2007/08/greek-traditions-shine-at-macedonia-new.html in the Reed Opera House or Caruso’s yet? Although, I will say, that as delicious as the food we had at Caruso’s was for our anniversary last year, it didn’t seem as Italian as the place our daughter took us to in Leesburg 3 years ago. One of those places that will live on in my memory, whether it was the best or not.
Ugh! Not sure why that link didn’t work. Guess WordPress didn’t like it. Here’s the text: http://eatsalem.com/2007/08/greek-traditions-shine-at-macedonia-new.html
One of my favorite journalists, Jennifer 8. Lee, wrote a great book about Chinese food and her search for the real story behind General Tso’s, a dish that doesn’t quite exist in China. It is all about the ways that Chinese food has been appropriated and rehashed, mangled sometimes, and reinvented for the American palate. Lee is queen of the “conceptual scoop.” Great book.
http://www.fortunecookiechronicles.com/
For consistently good Americanized Chinese food we love Lum Yuen’s. Their combo’s are two meals in one… lots of leftovers