[QUOTE=Elen_Luyddog]
I know of the one Great Exception. It may not be authentic but it is terrific food. They have the smallest buffet in creation but what they do they do well. If you are ever in Huntington West Virginia you MUST go to Magic Wok on 5th Ave. Amazing.
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Holy crap! Magic Wok was our standard Sunday afternoon meal in college! As starving music students, we’d come from rehearsal or come out of our practice room starving, and trek over to Magic Wok. Best. Chinese. Buffet. Ever. I have never found anything that even remotely compares. We would stuff ourselves, and then gorge on those little powdered fried dough things they make (do they still make those?).
I’ve been trying to talk my husband into a trip to Huntington so that I can show him my old stomping grounds, but he hates Chinese food, so I wasn’t sure I could ever talk him into Magic Wok. Now after being reminded of how good it was, he’s going whether he likes it or not .
As for restaurants I hate…Applebees. I will never set foot in another Applebees as long as I live. I have never eaten a meal there that I’ve actually enjoyed.
[QUOTE=lee]
There is a Thai restaurant on the corner of Harlem and Touhy. Avoid it. I was served a sauce that looked like dishwater, but with less flavor. It did have a dirty soapy flavor, but was more watered down than genuine dishwater despite being thicker. The rest of the meal was just as impressive and all of it was tepid. The place was not busy despite being lunchtime. We paid and left without eating and grabbed a gyros at Nick’s.
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Siam House? Never been there, but that’s pretty close to one of the best homestyle Thai places in the city: Elephant Thai on 5348 W. Devon. Next time you get the Thai urge in the area, try heading there. I promise you won’t regret it.
[QUOTE=pulykamell]
Don’t be so quick to dismiss a place in a strip mall. There happen to be a few very good ethnic places to be found in strip malls. Here, in the Chicago area, for example, the only Chinese place (that I know of) that actually makes its own noodles is located in a strip mall. (Katy’s Dumplings in Westmont, for those interested). You can find some unexpected treasures in strip malls. They’re not all Chop Suey/Chow Mein type places (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
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I said middle America strip mall. I have nothing against strip malls at all, but I think it is unlikely to find authentic Chineses food (which goes beyond making one’s own noodles) there.
[QUOTE=Darryl Lict]
I’m with Voyager. New York City, San Francisco and L.A. have fantastic (I was going to say world class, but I’ve only been to cheap restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai) Chinese food. I hope to go to Hong Kong some day. Sydney’s got some killer Chinese food also. I gotta say, cheap London Chinese takeout is pretty friggen’ weird (sample of one).
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To be fair, authentic might not equal good for all people. I grew up on New York neighborhood Chinese food, and it would take me a while to get adjusted to authentic food as a steady diet. But I can tell the difference.
Being from New York, I can say that “authentic” New York deli (especially pastrami) sucks in the hinterlands as a rule. I believe LA has good stuff, and the deli in the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City was very, very good.
I know that any (cheap) steak place that my dad likes, I will loathe. This includes Lone Star, Longhouse, and (especially) Outback. Locally, there’s Tucker’s, as well. Yes, their prices may be cheap for a good steak – but these places instead serve over-seasoned shoe leather. Bologna tastes more steak-like than that crap.
And I don’t eat at any seafood restaurants around here. But that’s because I live in Missouri; there are no seas near MO to get seafood from. Perhaps someday others will realize this and stop asking me to go out for seafood. Unless they’re flying off to a coast for it.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
(which goes beyond making one’s own noodles) there.
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No kidding. I was using that as a point that of the authentic places in Chicago, only one really makes their own noodles in-house, and it’s located in a suburban strip mall. Not that weird ingredients automatically mean authentic, but you can get stuff like pig’s ears, pig stomach, beef tendon, and jellyfish there.
Another vote for Outback. Apparently we were not alone, because 2 years after the opening, it folded, and the building was torn down! That was shocking, because it seemed like a nice enough building.
The space is now occupied by a bank. Those banks make too damn much money off our backs.
[QUOTE=pulykamell]
Don’t be so quick to dismiss a place in a strip mall. There happen to be a few very good ethnic places to be found in strip malls. Here, in the Chicago area, for example, the only Chinese place (that I know of) that actually makes its own noodles is located in a strip mall. (Katy’s Dumplings in Westmont, for those interested). You can find some unexpected treasures in strip malls. They’re not all Chop Suey/Chow Mein type places (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
As for the OP, I loathe both Taco Bell and Chipotle. I will only eat there out of politeness or no other convenient choice being nearby. I marginally prefer Chipotle, as it’s just overly bland crap, but Taco Bell is actively offensive to me. Even as a college student on a budget, I could not see its appeal. I understand many others like it, but to me it’s insultingly awful food.
As for chain sit-downs, I don’t like the Olive Garden, but no others I hate come to mind. I tend not to go to chains, but most of the ones I’ve visited have been competent, if nothing memorable.
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Chipotle is acceptable, but Houston has about 9,000 taco dives better than Taco Bell.
Management can keep a chain restaurant in the “OK” category–or send it to the “run for your life” category. We’re got plenty of chains in Houston. But–like any big city–we have numerous alternatives. Although pickings get a bit slim out in Far Suburbia…
[QUOTE=lee]
I need a recommendation now for places near Melrose Park, we moved. Up that way we usually went to Ruby of Siam which is good.
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Never been there, but I’ve heard good things about Nathan’s Noodles on York in Elmhurst, particularly their panang curry.
Other than that, the western burbs are kind of a black hole to me (as in, I don’t know much about the area). I go to Katy’s in Westmont and a Hungarian joint called The Epicurean Hungarian in Hillside when I’m in that neck of the woods. I’ve lived in Hungary for over five years, and I can certainly vouch for the food The Epicurean presents as being true to its roots.
[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
The worst Chinese restaurant I ever ate at was in Scotland (shudder). Although I should also mention that if you are passing through Salina, Kansas or Millinocket, Maine and get the urge to eat Chinese - don’t.
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That’s too bad about Salina, but they do have some decent places there. The Red Coach(?), Tony’s Pizza, Cozy Burgers, all excellent.
[QUOTE=Elysium] tdn, as you drive down rte 3 past the site you can see the empty cactus sign that is now a gravemarker, it would lift your spirits I bet.
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I really had no wish to see the place close down. A lot of people enjoy it, though apparently not enough. It was just not a great place for me.
Olive Garden–their food doesn’t sit too well, so I quit going.
Outback–too salty, and rather costly.
Pretty much all chain fast foods, except for In N Out.
Claim Jumper–nobody needs portions that big.
[QUOTE=tdn]
I really had no wish to see the place close down. A lot of people enjoy it, though apparently not enough. It was just not a great place for me.
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Did you ever try the “lobster pie” there. Not really a pie, just chunks of tail and claw meat in a casserole dish with some buttered bread crumbs mixed in. I swear there must have been the meat of 3 lobsters in there, it was impossible to finish it. Yum.
I don’t know crap about Salina, but there are a couple damn good chinese places scattered around small towns in the Mountain West, and not only the expensive ski-resort towns. Little groups of the Chinese who were brought over to build the railroads and then abandoned, joined little communities and started cooking their old food.
[QUOTE=Honey]
Did you ever try the “lobster pie” there.
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No, I was there only once, and my meal was steak and chicken, topped with an entire lamb, IIRC. But one third of what you descibe is called lazy man’s lobster everywhere else in the world. The best places to get it are in Gloucester and Edgartown.
Speaking of Salina, a bit outside the city limits is Brookville House, quite possibly the best fried chicken in the known universe. My parents assure me that no, a place within Salina is far better.
[QUOTE=tdn]
I really had no wish to see the place close down. A lot of people enjoy it, though apparently not enough. It was just not a great place for me.
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They’re talking about the Braintree Hilltop annex. The original in Saugus is still alive and well.
[QUOTE=elmwood]
The chains really don’t dominate, except in the suburbs of rapidly growing metropolitan areas. Because of their national advertising and reputation, they’re highly visible.
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Within cities proper you don’t see them quite so much, but suburbs are the locus of Mass Market America, which is one of the things I don’t love about my country and makes wish I could live on **Colophon’s ** side of the water.
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