My parents get food from here sometimes because it's one of the only Chinese restaurants open on Sundays. I happened to be at their house on such a Sunday, the other day, and of course I was more than happy to partake. I mean, it's Chinese food.
I went to high school nearby, and I lived in the classy apartment complex directly adjacent to this shopping center the first year after I graduated from college. Pulling into the parking lot the other day I was reminded of so many stories, including a stabbing that took place at a nearby Boston Market. If only that location were still there, I might try to research it for the sake of citizen food journalism, but alas.
Inside, there's one of those huge backlit menus with pictures of some of their more impressive selections, like the Happy Family, and the Tiger vs. the Dragon, or something to that effect. Some of them sounded like they may have been invented by Napoleon Dynamite (which was a hot movie when I was living in those apartments, btw).
"What's a liger? It's pretty much my favorite animal. Like a lion and tiger mixed, bred for its skills in magic."
Rarely will I bother with some of the fancier menu items at a Chinese restaurant, not (only) because I'm not in a position where I can easily drop $10 on a meal, unless I'm getting something out of it, but because it could turn out to be hot garbage, depending on the quality of the ingredients. Anything with shrimp in it, in particular, always seems like it might be good, because shrimp, but the shrimp these places use are low quality even compared to the ones you get in the Endless Shrimp promotion at Red Lobster.
I got the lo mein, and my old man got the egg foo young. My old man called in the order before I went to pick it up. The guy on the other end of the line said it would be ready in--you guessed it--15 minutes, but I got there in eight and a half minutes, and it was already sitting there in a bag on the counter.
The guy working the counter asked me if I'd called in an order, and I told him I that I had. Then the phone rang, and he proceeded to spend what seemed like half an hour taking the world's most elaborate Chinese takeout order. Probably some soccer mom whose kids all have weird medical conditions. It's that kind of neighborhood. An adorable teenage girl with a face like a pepperoni pizza walked by and asked me if I'd already ordered. I was half-tempted to tell her that I hadn't and just order again.
A few things I noticed about the restaurant:
1) There's a surprising number of tables, more than would seem comfortable in such a small space. I wonder if a lot of people dine in for lunch during the week.
2) They just give their condiments away, as if this were a Taco Bell. There's a table set up over to one side with various condiments just kinda sitting there either in the boxes they came in, or those clear, plastic to-go soup containers. In Chinese restaurants further east on Olive, they'll charge an extra $0.15 or so for extra soy sauce, and some of them even have signs warning as much, lest you get any bright ideas.
3) You can actually see in the back. The counter is only separated from the kitchen by what appears to be a clear shower curtain liner cut into strips. The kitchen was surprisingly clean. I have a cousin who's a cop in U City, where, statistically speaking, most Chinese restaurants are located. She has to enter them at night sometimes when the alarm goes off, and she says they're positively filthy.
The thing is, as gross as some of those hood Chinese places are, they have amazing food. The food here at China King is fine, but you certainly wouldn't drive past any of those other places to eat here, and you might even consider going out of your way, if it's any day of the week other than Sunday.
The lo mein was about as good as the lo mein I've gotten anywhere, though I'm beginning to wonder if there's such a thing as bad lo mein. I gave high marks to the lo mein at the mighty Bek Hee, on Page, but it wasn't any better than this.
But the egg rolls at Bek Hee are far superior. I got the lo mein dinner combination plate, which comes with chicken fried rice and an egg roll. The chicken fried rice contained what could charitably be called a dusting of chicken, but I wasn't sweating it, because the fact that they give you meat fried rice as a side already seemed mighty generous. I would have settled for plain fried rice!
If I had it to do over again, I would have gone with crab rangoon rather than the egg roll, which was an option. This egg roll seemed like something you could buy frozen at the Schnucks next door and just drop in a deep fryer. I'd compare it to the egg rolls at Jack in the Box, which is the worst thing you can possibly say about an egg roll that wouldn't violate this site's terms of service. read more