I am a fan of Chinese food. It was inevitable that in St. Louis, I would open up the Yelp app, type in "Chinese restaurants" and see what downtown St. Louis had to offer. One of the Chinese restaurants that it had to offer was the Red Door Chinese Eatery, which happened to be a couple of blocks south of the 7th at Washington Streets Embassy Suites.
It was in the late afternoon after touring the St. Louis Zoo that we dined in the Red Door. With the Cardinals on the road, Downtown St. Louis was dead on this particular Saturday night. Where the Red Door is the majority of the businesses were closed or out of business. In the future this will most likely be changing as cranes bring historic downtown buildings back to life. I am providing this information because the restaurant itself was also pretty dead on a late Saturday afternoon. This contributed to a laid back environment with a low noise level.
When we walked inside this dimly lit Chinese restaurant that would be a nice place to bring a date, we were greeted right away. Our table overlooked the buffet bar, a few HD TVs, and the bar. At this time of day, the buffet was closed. Above me I'd occasionally watch the UFC fight on the TV. A want for music contributed to the low noise level that was beneficial to chatting with my family (dad, bro, and I). It is also beneficial if you are on a date.
Off the two page menu, I ordered off the Hot Combo Box. I ordered the Beef Pepper Steak. At $8.35 (not a bad price for dinner in downtown) it included fried rice and an egg roll. In my book what is a memorable Chinese restaurant dinner without wonton soup. For $2.95, I ordered the wonton soup for one. With the dinner, we ordered a kettle of hot tea.
Before I talk about the food, I need to bring up that I am a big fan of hot Chinese tea. We were sipping this beverage as if the Mississippi River was evaporating. By the time we exited the door onto 7th Street, the waitress had brought three kettles of tea to the table. I love Chinese tea so much that Post-Saint Louis vacation, I have unsuccessfully tried the major Las Vegas supermarkets looking for it. I even went online. The fact that this hot tea was so delicious that I will be visiting an Asian supermarket in the hopes of finding it, is worthy of rounding up a star.
Another positive about this hot tea was that this delicious hot tea kept me wide awake. In this very alert state, I savored tasting the Chinese food. In my 40-somethinh years on this planet, I do not recall seeing a bowl of wonton soup stuffed with wontons. Customarily there are two or three wontons in a bowl. This was bowl was quadruple. This observation comes from somebody that grew up in New York where there is practically a Chinese restaurant in every shopping center. Next, I appreciated the New York style egg roll. Living by Las Vegas, it is nearly as difficult finding a New York Style egg roll as finding Chinese tea in a supermarket. I tried to make every moment count eating it. Near the New York style egg roll, I savored the flavorful fried rice. Below the two side dishes, I delighted in eating the tasty beef pepper steak loaded with a delectable sauce, warm onions, and green peppers. In St. Louis Cardinals terminology, this meal hit it outside the ballpark.
When reviewing restaurants and businesses, it is important to keep things in perspective. The Red Door Chinese Eatery served me very good Chinese food. However, it wasn't the greatest Chinese food that I had. If I was reviewing it in San Francisco or New York where there are better Chinese restaurants, I would of rated it 3.5 Stars. But, that would be comparing apples to oranges. The reality is that in the Downtown St. Louis of 2018, at least walking distance to Embassy Suites, the Chinese restaurant competition is extremely sparse. Taking into consideration that the Downtown St. Louis playing field features only a couple Chinese restaurants and on account of the outstanding hot Chinese tea that I stated was going to round up my rating half a star; Red Door Chinese Eatery is worthy of Four Stars. read more