Probably the worst restaurant i've ever been to

The BBQ Pit
101

I can verify that Lung Cheung did indeed close down several years ago. The building also burned to the ground soon afterwards, so now there’s only a gravel lot where it once stood.

bodypoet already beat me at mentioning the Trojan Horse on the corner of Walnut and Kirkwood. Tasty gyros.

Another vote here for Snow Lion, which is a Tibetan restaurant. I prefer to get my food carry out over there. (They seem to have trouble getting their dishes washed properly, IMHO.) Give me platic forks and a styrofoam take-out tray over crusty dinnerware any day.

Don’t forget to check out Yats cajun / creole on Grant Street between 3rd and 4th.

Before I forget: Wesley, I have also had less-than-satisfying results at the American Chopstick. No matter how much or which type of sauce I use, the food ends up tasting bland to me. I guess I really need to ladle that bowl full of sauce before I hand it to the cook. (BTW: they ask that you don’t put hot sauces on items that are to be cooked. They don’t want to accidentally spice up the next person’s food when they put it on the barbecue.)

102

I meant to write “plastic”, of course.

103

The worst restaurant in possibly the whole, wide world is in Ruch, Oregon. They opened recently and a friend and I tried them. I won’t name names, as my friend and I are too ashamed to admit we dined there. Feeling a bit peckish; we pulled into a building that proclaimed “New Restaurant! Grand Opening!” The building also served as a post office and orchid store. Yes, they sold orchids. Believe me, when offered a choice between the menu of ‘the restaurant’ or the orchids, choose wisely and order the rotted bark the orchids are potted in. It will be a much more pleasant repast.

When my friend and I entered the establishment, there was no one to greet us. So we contented ourselves with petting the orchids until a gentleman in his eighties greeted us. He seemed rather frantic. Or to say, as frantic as a gentleman in his eighties can be. “Are you here for lunch?” he croaked. “Yes, we are. It’s 12:30 and we assumed you were open. Since you had your OPEN sign on and all…”

He assured us that they were indeed, OPEN; but they were ‘just getting started on things.’ How odd, the hours listed on door stated “OPEN: 11:00am to 8:00pm”. I can only assume that patrons arriving before 12:30pm were told not to pay any attention to the little man behind the curtain…

He told us to seat ourselves, which we did. 20 minutes later, the elderly gent came by to ask if we wanted anything to drink. Did I mention that we were the ONLY customers in the restaurant? I timidly asked for coffee, my friend requested iced tea. Our geriatric server gasped “COFFEE!! I made some yesterday, maybe the girl in the kitchen can show me how to make it!” I assured him that a Coke would be fine. Seems they only serve Pepsi. Whatever.

At this point, he handed us some greasy paper menus. As this was supposed to be the “Grand Opening”, I wondered where the grease came from. Let it go, truthbot. Give the man a chance. I asked him what the soup of the day was. He looked flustered and said he’d go check. He disappeared into the kitchen and came back five minutes later. “She’s still cooking the soup, and she’s not sure what it will be. It might be clam chowder, or cream of potato.” I hope the clams win in their bid for freedom; I chose the meatball sub. My friend orders the linguine with clam sauce (she has no deal with the clams, she poo-poos my protests.)

The meatball sub was as advertised. One huge freakin’ meatball in a stale roll. My friend fared a bit better with her pasta dish, it was ‘only slightly gritty’. Sleep with the clams, wake up with sand, I tell her.

We tipped the old fella ten bucks because we felt it would go towards his retirement or oxygen purchases. A lesson learned for the two of us, for less than thirty bucks. Such is life.

104

Reminds me of a story Chris Isaak told. He was travelling with the band on the bus and kept agitating to stop for a scenic flight. He kept pointing out cheaper and cheaper flights at rattier airfields until one of the band poined out, “When it comes to flying is cheaper really what you want?”

And an old horseplayer’s adage goes: a tip, like a meal in a restaurant, is usually worth less than you pay for it.

105

Hey Guy Incognito, would you want to come if I, bodypoet and Todd33rpm go to Mandarin Buffet anytime. YOu don’t have an email listed so I can’t ask you in email so i’m asking here on the boards.

And $6 for a meal doesn’t guarantee it will be low quality at all. Most buffets are under $8 here, and the majority are good.

106

I might take you guys up on that. My wife would probably like to check it out as well. I’ll list my e-mail shortly so you guys can drop me a line whenever you’re going there.

Also, a really nice Chinese buffet is the China Star in Ellettsville.

107

I used to love these places-face it, it was moderately priced, and the food was freshly cooked. I’d ladle a ton of hot oil and soy sauce onto my meat, and load up my bowl with peapods and bean sprouts-with some white rice, that was a damn good lunch!
I haven’t seen one in years…except for one in Orlando, FL.
Question: how come all the “mongolians” were mexicans?

108

If you don’t want to cook your own, then you should probably avoid fondue places like The Melting Pot.

109

You guys have a Yats down in Bloomington? Best restaurant in town, and everything on the menu is $5. Everything’s made fresh that day, and they don’t have a set menu. The days they have gumbo, you better get their early, or else they run out.

If you haven’t tried it yet, Wesley, hightail it next time you’re going out. I recommend either the gumbo or anything ettoufee, but anything else is fantastic. They’ll give you samples if you can’t make up your mind or if you’ve never had the dishes before.

110

I think I’d pass on that. Raw chicken and clueless customers make for a bad combination. I’ve already counted all of the tiles on my bathroom floor, thankyouverymuch.

I’d also avoid any place where the food is described as “crawling.”

111

I’m not sure where you are, but there are no less than two new places(less than a year old) which have opened which serve Mongolian Barbeque within about five miles of my house. This doesn’t count the three or four we had within that radius already. For the most part the cooks are hispanic in my area because we have a very large pool of hispanic immigrants who are looking for work and standing over a ridiculously hot griddle in the steam from all the stuff being cooked is a job you don’t really want unless you’re desperate or passionate. Being passionate about cooking mongolian barbeque seems to be a rare trait while being desperate for work seems less rare.

Enjoy,
Steven

112

Don’t even need to read the whole thread to respond…

God I love Mongolian BBQ…although found it odd they had a buffet of “pre-made” food there, such as General Tso’s Chicken. Weird.

Anyway, yeah, to reiterate…they highly encourage that you don’t mix different meat and poultry because of the different length of cooking time each one needs. And, yes, it’s the spices and sauces that add the flavor, so if you didn’t throw any in…AND no vegetables…you had a bowl of cooked meat. Ugh.

My personal favorites…I go for the New York Strip, onions, green peppers and mushrooms, throw in Chili Garlic and BBQ sauces, and load up on the spicy spices. Nice. Follow that with duck, water chestnuts, baby corn and broccoli, covered with peanut sauce, soy, and teriyaki.

They just introducted spicy buffalo sauce to the line-up as well…so I usually mix that in with some chicken, then hit the salad bar and mix in some bleu cheese dressing at the end.

113

Oooh, Yats. Love that place–great food and lots of it, cheap. Can’t beat that. I just tend to forget about it, because it’s downtown and we’re in Ellettsville.

The Snow Lion is possibly the only place I’ve ever been where I literally couldn’t eat the food. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, though, so maybe it was the particular dish I ordered. (The rice was mushy–like toddler-food mushy.) I’ll try it again someday.

There’s another place down near Yats, Wesley…can’t remember the name. On Fourth St, there’s the Vintage Wearhouse, then a building, and then I think it’s the very next place–a little house-type restaurant. No buffet, but very good food. I can’t remember if it’s Thai or something else, but that type of stuff.

Pricewise, in Bloomington, you should be able to get an excellent meal for $6-8, especially near campus. Of course, you can always go to Zagreb, and get an excellent meal for, say, $30, as long as you like steak and potatoes, because that’s about all they serve. (But man, what a steak!)

I’m really hungry now, and I’m too broke to eat out! :frowning:

114

Are you talking about the ethnic restaurant district on 4th street? The only place there i’ve ever been to in that area was Bombay house, so I assume the place you’re talking about is nearby. The food at bombay house was really good but it made me sick the next day so I won’t be going back there. Maybe you mean ‘Siam House’ if you are referring to Thai food in the ethnic restaurant area on E 4th street.

I put in yats on the yahoo yellow pages and the nearest one is in Indy, so I won’t be going there.

I think ponderosa is still a pretty good deal, on sunday if you are an IU student you get a steak dinner and the AYCE buffet for $5.49. So I sometimes go there with friends.

115

For the record, the main reasons the restaurant sucked was because the coke was watered down (others who have been there have said the same thing), the chicken had vinegar in it, the selections were largely empty and the food was bland. True I could’ve made the food less bland with spices but that doesn’t change the other stuff, even if I had made good BBQ the restaurant still wouldn’t have me going back to it.

116

NurseCarmen, what Mpls Mongolian BBQ do you mean? The only one I know of around here is Khan’s, which is pretty good.

I haven’t been there since February, though. One of my friends claimed the dragon sauce was hot and was boasting about using two scoops on his meal, so I got another bowl, filled it with pork (what else?) and then dredged the bottom of the dragon sauce container, adding three scoops of toxic waste rather than three scoops of flavored water.

I ate it all, to the acclaim of all present, and I basked in the glory of my accomplishment. Yes, I’m still enough of a child to partake in the occasional eating contest.

I even managed to keep it all down until I got home and into the bathroom just inside the house.

117

While your complaint about the soda is valid, your constant griping about the General Tsao’s chicken is still strange. It would be like complaining about the pizza or chicken nuggets that some chinese buffets serve. Why would you go to one type of restaraunt specializing in a certain cuisine and expect the oddball dish(es) that’re there for no apparent reason to be good?

I’m not going to jump you over this since my experiences with Mongolian Buffets haven’t been the best either (due to my inexperience) but, really, if you’d just stop trying to “find the best deal” all the time and constantly worrying about how to save a penny on your meal, your dining experiences would probably get better.

There’s a hell of a lot of difference between shopping smart and being a miser and, to be honest, you’re at the extreme edge of the latter.

118

No its not that is like saying someone who goes to a steakhouse and finds the soup sucks has no valid reason to complain. Just because it says ‘steakhouse’ in the title doesn’t mean people aren’t allowed to eat anything but steak or be allowed to expect that the food in general should be good. I don’t get the simplistic mentality of people like that.

I can find a good deal and I have many times over and I have never sacrificed quality, I don’t know where you people get the idea that you have to spend a good sum of money for quality food. I probably have miser leanings however I do not think that the price of food and the quality are as interrelated as some people assume.

119

Y’know, I have to agree with the first part of this. If I go to a seafood restaurant with someone who doesn’t like fish, I certainly expect the token steak or chicken on the menu to be good for them. If a restaurant can’t or won’t make a dish properly, it shouldn’t be on the menu.

120

You’re comparing different restaraunts here so the analogy doesn’t hold. An all you can eat buffet is not the same as a steakhouse and the general quality between the two is perceptable.

If I go to a steakhouse, I expect everything on the menu to be at least of average quality but know that going to a buffet, especially ones that’re really cheap or advertise as having a hundred different items, is a gamble. They sacrific

Also, I did not insult you in my post and am not too appreciative of the fact that you’re calling me simplistic. You got pissy earlier in this thread about “condescending assholes” and are now doing the same thing to me. It’s not very becoming.