Lucky China

4038 Butler Hill Rd
St Louis, MO

Angel set us up for a weekend getaway at the Hampton Inn, a deluxe room with jacuzzi. This is the way we occasionally spoil ourselves. A simple plan. Get a great room, pick up some Chinese takeout, plug in the portable DVD player and binge watch season three of the TV series 'Justified'.
Most of that we could do at home, though not the jacuzzi part. However, the whole point was to get away  from distractions for one freakin' night. When you run a small business out of your home it is very, very easy to get distracted. Especially if that small business is populated by living, breathing, barking, furry animals.
The reason for this particular weekend was that my birthday was on Sunday.
Adam's was the day after, so leaving him alone at the house was as much a treat for him.
Angel had assumed the hotel was in Arnold. So we drove there. Oops, that's a Drury Inn, we were booked in a Hampton. So she fired up Tina, her new Tom-Tom GPS device and saw that we were about three miles away.
So up Lemay Ferry we went, just across the Meramec River into St. Louis County, then onto Butler Hill road and there it was.
The Place:

She'd checked ahead for a decent Chinese takeout place, but it was back in Arnold. So when we checked in, I asked the very helpful lady at the desk if there were any nearby Chinese places. She handed me a list of about twenty nearby restaurants with phone numbers. There were six or seven Chinese places on the list.
We saw a Walgreens from the hotel, Angel said she needed to pick something up anyhow, so we took a chance and just drove to it, hoping we'd see something on the way or nearby.
Just across from the Walgreens was a small shopping center, sure enough, in big bright red letters: 'Chinese Food'.
This is of course, kind of risky. Some Chinese places just aren't as good as others. Most don't have web sites so it's a little tough doing advance research. We didn't know this area very well either, so we didn't even have a recommendation.
There was a multi-page menu taped to the front window so we studied it first. It seemed to have everything we were after, so we crossed our fingers and marched in.

The Food:

A young Chinese man stepped up to the counter. Behind the counter, sitting on the floor, was an adorable little girl of about three or four, or maybe five or six, I can't tell anymore, poking away at an E-tablet. She also had earbuds in so she was completely absorbed and never even looked up.
Angel pointed at things on the counter menu, choosing three combo meals.
Three?
Yeah, three. It's the way we do things when we want a buffet but we want it at home. So she first asked for General Tso's, because sesame gets really, really sickly sweet after a while. next was the 'Cashew style' otherwise known as 'Springfield style' for those of us who know the center of the American style Chinese food universe. Then she picked a new one, Shrimp in Lobster Sauce. I liked the sound of that.
Each combo meal came with a couple of sides so when you do this, you get a pretty good variety. Fried rice, white rice and in this case, crab Rangoon.
We'd pre-packed a few paper plates and some real silverware, because we've done this before.
There was of course, about a ten minute wait. That's when I decided that we might be reviewing the place, if and only if it turned out to be good. This was a vacation and I didn't want to spoil it by blogging, so I hadn't planned on reviewing anything. But I had a feeling. So I went out front and started taking photos, just in case.
Soon enough, the food was brought out in a single thick bag by a young lady whose English was still a little rough, but we could make out that it sounded like what we ordered.
We got to the room, and laid out the spread on the buffet table. Well, okay, it was a desk, but a really wide one. As Angel opened everything I fiddled with the portable DVD and got it going on the big, swiveling, wall mounted flat panel.
I said it was a deluxe room, right?

"Wow." she said. I looked down. The containers were opened and what it was, well, 'pretty'. We're more accustomed to 'dump it into the bucket' joints. This actually looked arranged.
The glaze on the General's was beautiful, the bright steamed broccoli (blech!) lined up between the chicken and the rice. The rice itself was highlighted by some generous chunks of chicken.
The cashew style was generous with finely chopped veggies, it even had some of those tiny ears of corn. The Shrimp was enormous and bathed in a soup like sauce.
The wontons were all identically hand folded into a floral style.
It was almost too pretty to disturb.
We each filled our plates with a little of almost everything and pressed 'play' on the portable DVD.
Deputy U.S. Marshall Rayland Givens started off all fists and guns and hillbillies pushing dope and shooting each other. Perfect.
The best thing on the buffet, at least the thing that stood out the most, was the rangoons. They were crispy on all sides. Most places can't keep the bottoms crispy, Lucky had this perfect. All of them, the bottom as crisp as the edges.
It was all very, very good. Noticeably good, stand out good.
Summary:
I was planning to take the weekend off. The only reason I reviewed this place at all was because it was just that much better than most Chinese places. You know the ones I'm talking about. Everyone knows a place or two that they've tried once and decided never to go back to, even if that meant driving a little farther.
Hillsboro has one of those. We ordered there once, never again. I've never reviewed it or uttered it's name and I don't plan on ever reviewing it. I just don't care for Chinese food when I know it is going to be disappointing.
But Lucky is a standout. If there weren't thirty other Chinese joints between my house and Lucky's I'd make it our new go-to place. We will certainly go there again whenever we make it back up to that particular area of South County.


Epilogue:
In the morning we had some complimentary coffee, packed up and headed out. We decided to find some breakfast. Angel had located a Denny's down the road. I mean, road breakfast = Denny's right?
So we went in to the really crowded and busy place, were seated and offered drinks. I needed more coffee, we'd watched a LOT of 'Justified' the night before. Angel asked for orange juice.
We glanced at the seasonal menu appendix. Not being a fan of 'pumpkin' as a flavor, in anything, we both quickly passed on that card.
In the main menu, I thought for a moment about the country fried steak, but settled for a grand slam instead. Four breakfast items any combination. I went for biscuit, bacon, hash browns and two eggs, over medium. Angel also asked for hash browns to go with her scrambled eggs, ham and English muffin.
I thought about asking for juice too, the coffee didn't seem to be very good. Not old or bitter, just not right, maybe too weak.
The eggs weren't pretty like those you get at Waffle House, they were dull and flat. There was about a pound of butter in a ramekin for the one biscuit and there were more hash browns than anything else. A disproportionate amount. As far as feeding the eye this was not as pretty as the pictures. It looked rushed and unenthusiastic. The hash browns were done, but just barely. We like them crisp at least a little bit. They weren't bad, but they sure could have used a little more time on the grill. The eggs, a little less, it was barely runny. We were fed, but not quite pleased.
Waffle House would have been a much better choice.

Post-Epilogue Final Wrap-up and. Conclusion:
 Overall it was quite a nice weekend getaway. We had a good time, had time to really relax, got plenty of uninterrupted sleep. We were still talking about the previous evening's 'buffet' on the short drive home. We were packing leftovers.
So if anyone asks, I'm proud to say we 'got Lucky' that night and recommend everyone we know to do the same.

Lam's Garden

  510 Bailey Rd.
Crystal City, Mo.

A do-it-yourself buffet. Yet another review of a place I didn't actually go to.
We like Lam's, some of the best Chinese food in mid-Jefferson County.
The only problem with it is that it's not a buffet. I've said it a hundred times, I prefer my Chinese buffet-style. I'm not that way with American, Mexican, Italian, or any other cuisine that pops to mind, but for some reason, when it comes to Chinese I want a little of several things, not just a big plate of one or two.
There's a way around this if you order several things and bring it all home. Then you pop open the cartons and go family style.
So we did.
Angel and Adam browsed the menu online and pre-selected a variety, wrote it down without even letting me see it. No worries, they know what I like. I was busy with my manly weekend chores, which Angel calls 'napping'.  So the boy donned his cap, grabbed his keys and took off, list in hand.
It would take less than an hour, the round trip, so I prepared by making a batch of tea.
The Place:
It's a little hard to find since it's behind a few Main Street buildings, sort of a small industrial road. Turn on your GPS and you'll be fine.
I suppose it looks the same as the last couple of times I've been there. The atmosphere is friendly, even jovial. Many online reviews mention this. It's not stuffy or formal, nor is it anonymous. The people that work there will chat with you before, during and after the meal.
The Food:

Sesame Chicken

Angel had ordered four main entrees, pepper steak, sesame chicken, cashew chicken, and beef with broccoli. She added some egg rolls and two kinds of rice, fried and plain. With the order came the sweet hole-less donuts popular among Asian restaurants, and of course, fortune cookies. The food came in the stereotypical Chinese food cartons, except for the chicken, which arrived in a Styrofoam takeout box. My tea finished brewing, so I poured it into a tall glass crammed to the rim with ice cubes. It was beautiful, it was perfect.
Adam hilariously dumped a box of white rice onto his plate. It hilariously maintained the shape of the box. We all laughed at the sheer hilarity of it. Which really points out something important, we are, all three of us, very, very easily amused.
We filled up our plates, Adam and Angel took some beef and broccoli, I didn't since I find broccoli completely disgusting, especially cooked. I piled on the pepper beef with its huge chunks of onion and bell pepper, a few chunks of sesame chicken, some of the fried rice and an egg roll.

Hilarious, right?

My Plate, no broccoli.

I propped open my book. When I eat at the table, as I do almost every night, I read. Another George Pelecanos novel this time. I mostly read crime/detective fiction, usually starting with an author's series from the beginning, through the latest offering. In case I run out I have a  couple of large reads, one a complete Sherlock Holmes anthology, the other a thousand page monster, "Sacred Games" by Vikram Chandra, that follows a police detective in Mumbai, India.  Both are beautifully written, very detailed, but quite long.

Adam or Angel's plate, because - broccoli.

The rice was pretty good, about as good as it gets outside of Springfield, Mo. (undeniably, the best in the world) The peppers and onions were large and thick, but slightly overcooked. That's the problem when you cook in large batches then let it steam for a couple of hours. The beef was a problem though. It too was presented in large, thick chunks and was hard to casually cut with a fork. The taste, the sauce, was savory and pretty good. The egg roll was pretty good, still crispy on the outside and not too cabbage-y on the inside. The sesame chicken as well was too large. I like Chinese chicken in bite sized chunks. This fare was, in many cases, golf ball sized and had to be cut up. The taste though was very good, sweet but not sickeningly so. I didn't try the cashew chicken, I don't mind it, but I do find it generally too salty. Angel said hers wasn't. It was also large-chunked. She also said the beef in the broccoli (blech) beef was not as thick as I was experiencing and that it was quite tender. I'll take her word for that.

Fried ice, Chinese donut.

Cashew chicken, if you look it up on Wikipedia is quick to mention the Springfield, Mo. connection that I go on and on about. Take that, doubters.
Unlike at a real buffet, I only filled my plate once. We had plenty leftover to serve up for Sunday lunches.
All in all, quite good, except for the fuss of cutting it up, but that was not a huge problem, just an annoyance.


Summary:
Like I said at the beginning, Lam's is currently the best Chinese food in mid-Jefferson County. They may have a capable challenger soon though. We are eagerly awaiting the opening of the new Hibachi Buffet in Festus, that may be a game-changer.
The price for our faux-buffet was nearly forty dollars. More, by half, than we would spend at a real buffet, but we did have enough food for more than one meal each. Even that price wasn't bad for that much good food though. And it was pretty good.
I didn't crack open a fortune cookie, I never do. If I want some stranger's dubious and vague advice, I'll listen to my boss and co-workers more often. As for the lucky numbers printed on the back of the fortune, forget it. How many Chinese people do you know of that have ever won a lottery?
The tea? Since I made it myself, it rates a perfect '5' on the PJTea scale.

Canton Inn

205 W Sunshine St
Springfield, Mo.

I don’t often offer a review of a restaurant that I’ve not recently been to, but this place merits a distinct exception. First some background for those of you NOT from/in/around Springfield Mo.

I lived in Springfield from 1985 through 2001. Most of my adult life in fact, for nearly as long as I lived in my original home town in Kentucky. So perhaps I’m a bit biased. Springfield, if not uniquely famous for anything else, is at least very well known for Chinese restaurants. Don’t believe me? Well, the New York Times does.
There are lots of Chinese joints in the Queen City of the Ozarks, noticeably so. Even non-Chinese places serve Springfield style cashew chicken there.

Many of the places come and go, change locations, ownership and names. Several have been around for a long time. Some are great, some are merely so-so. At any rate, Springfield has more Chinese restaurants, per capita, than any other city in the U.S.

I’m not a huge fan of Cashew Chicken itself, though I’ve had a lot of it. I prefer sweet and sour. But that’s not the point.

According to Angel, Canton Inn, near the corner of Sunshine and South Campbell, has the best eggrolls in the city, which equates to the best anywhere in the world. I can’t disagree. It’s also pretty cheap as you can see here.

So when she announced that her and Adam were heading down to see the new grandbaby, of course I asked for take-out. We do this whenever anyone heads down that way.

Sure enough when she got home she was packing a grocery-sized bag full of wontons, eggrolls and crab Rangoons.

The Chinese places in Jefferson and south St. Louis county areas don’t often offer wontons, and none of them make a great eggroll. Canton Inn’s offerings are not only very good, they travel well. She’d also brought a sweet and sour chicken meal in a box. I had that for dinner on Sunday, but wasn’t too impressed. The sauce had congealed and even the microwave would not cure that. The rice was, well, rice.

On Monday I decided to go nuts. I took the remaining wontons, rangoons and eggroll, laid them out on a cookie sheet, and stuck them into the oven, which was set to about 225 degrees. I then thawed and chopped up some chicken breasts and thighs. I also started the rice cooker.

I make rice and chicken a lot. Much tougher and messier is the other stuff, the deep-fried sides.

I breaded the chicken chunks in my usual blend of flour, corn meal, garlic powder and pepper. I filled the big skillet with a little oil, about an eighth of an inch or so, and set the thermometer in it to keep a consistent temperature range. The chunks are small so they have to be watched very closely. Over-cooking or too-high temperature will ruin them.  I made two skillets full, some I flash-glazed in bottled sweet and sour sauce, the rest I left plain. These bowls were also set into the oven. Angel has her own Springfield style cashew sauce recipe and would make some once everything else was done.

I filled up one bowl of plain rice for Adam and set it in the oven as well.

To finish up the rest of the rice I added chopped bell peppers, onions, celery, slivers of carrot, a chopped fried egg and some shreds of leftover turkey (dark meat preferred). Stir that together with a couple dashes of soy sauce and you end up with a pretty decent pile of un-fried rice.

I also steamed up some frozen pot stickers. Angel likes them, I think they’re okay. I can make a decent gyoza (pot-sticker favored in Japan) myself, but it takes a lot of time and is also pretty messy.

By the time all this was done, the eggroll, wontons and rangoons were hot and ready to serve.  Dinner time.

The wontons were crispy and filled with just a little meat, the rangoons, also still crispy were packed with what appeared to be actual crab  meat and a dollop of sweet cream cheese. With the Canton Inn sides the whole meal was dreamy.

As I said before, there are a lot of Chinese dining choices in Springfield. Some big and fancy sit-down and tablecloth places, many are small, hole-in-the-wall affairs. Canton Inn is small, old, and hardly sparkly. There is inside dining, less than ten tables, so it’s cramped, and it’s always busy. The service is fast, the staff is always bustling, and there are typically lines waiting at the counter for take-out. It’s not the biggest, the shiniest, nor is it necessarily the best. It’s not even a buffet, but it is certainly very good and very much representative of Springfield-style Chinese. The sides travel very well and are always top-notch.

Springfield Missouri gave us a Wild Bill Hickok shootout, Bob Barker, Brad Pitt, Bass Pro Shops, Route 66, The Ozark Jubilee, and many other reasonably memorable and significant other things. It is home to the largest public school district in the state and to Missouri State University.

Without a doubt though, the most important item to ever emerge from my first adopted home town is the Chinese style food. In my reasoned, expert opinion, it is better than anywhere else I’ve been, including San Francisco, Japan and Korea, and most definitely markedly better than any you’ll find in Maryland, D.C., Florida, Texas, Illinois and Kentucky. (other places I’ve lived).

If you ever go through there, or know someone that will be heading that way, I strongly advise you to try it out, and Canton Inn is as good a place to start as any.