China King

412 N. Main
DeSoto, Mo.
On Facebook


I crowd-sourced this choice. (I asked people on a social network group to recommend a place).
This was not a gimmick though, I really wanted input and I figured, who better to ask than a group called "If you grew up in Desoto, Mo., you might remember . . . "  I didn't grow up there but I joined the group for historical reasons. . . history club stuff. There's a lot of old photos posted there and discussions as to what used to be where, etc. Here's what I posted.
"Sorry to intrude with a non-history question, but I'm kind of a marital bind. I need to find a decent Chinese take out place in Desoto. Thoughts? Recommendations? Places to avoid?"
There were several responses, even some debate. Only one name came up, to near unanimous recommendation.
One post, by Ed,  a guy I know IRL (in real life):
"Too bad you specified De Soto. I know this excellent place on Ty Tung Doh Low (phonetic spelling). But that's in Tai Pei"
I responded that I knew a couple of great places as well, in Northern Japan and South Korea.
You see, the travel was the entire point of my inquiry.
The country road I live on connects to a minor county road. At least it used to. There's a bridge over a creek between our compound and that other road. It is being completely rebuilt, road closed.
The detour adds about four or five miles to any and all trips to anywhere. That may not sound like much, but it is all country road miles. No center lines, no shoulders, narrow, curvy and constantly populated by deer, tractors and other country stuff.
Normally when we bring home Chinese, we go to Lam's in Festus. If we want a buffet, we go to Festus.
Now that Festus was even further away than it used to be, I was looking to cut down on the drive time. Desoto is about five miles closer than Festus. I'd never had Chinese food in DeSoto.
So I asked the group to name the good ones.

The Place:
Located next to the Dollar General in a not-completely-occupied strip mall on Main street. The parking lot was barely littered with patrons, it was rather quiet. On the railroad tracks across the street, a double locomotive idled powerfully, sounding hungry for the long pull to come.
It had taken about a half hour to get there, Angel had composed and called in the order just as I was leaving. I took her list with me just in case the order wasn't quite all there.
There was a couple, or a small family sitting at one of the tables, I couldn't tell if they were eating in or waiting for a take-out.
Overall the place looked exactly like every other small town Chinese take-out place, maybe a little more worn and run down. The carpet was stomped almost smooth and shiny in a few heavy traffic areas, the lights seemed old, just not as bright as maybe they once were. It wasn't necessarily dirty, just well-worn.
There was a man at the counter paying for his order, I was next in line. Actually, I was the line. The lady asked for my phone number, Angel had said they didn't ask for a name, just a number. This sort of thing is not usually a problem for me, however I fumbled the answer this time like I was lying and got caught. The problem was that I rarely give out my home phone number and my personal cell phone number had recently changed. So I essentially answered in a confused compilation of three different numbers. Realizing I had screwed it up only made me more anxious about it so I started spitting out various unrelated number sequences. One of them must have come close, since the lady shoved a large bag towards me.
I handed her my debit card, she said something about signatures and dollar amounts, but I was still recovering from the phone number crisis so I didn't quite grasp the details. I merely trusted her to ring it up correctly, I either trusted or just didn't care, they look kind of the same in the language of my facial ticks and scowls.
I made the drive back, almost hitting a deer crossing the detour road, the same deer crossing in the opposite direction, at the same spot in the same road that I'd almost hit an hour earlier. I guessed that he went out for some take-out as well.
The Food:
We ordered three combos and a couple of sides, even though it would just be the two of us. We do take out this way, we set it up as a buffet at home.
What we got this time:

1. Pepper Beef. Slim strips of beef, big ol' chunks of bell pepper and onion and a savory gravy/sauce.
2. General Chicken. You know which general. Zuo Zongtang (Tso Tsung-t'ang) (1812–1885) was indeed a real person, a military leader and statesman. However, he had absolutely nothing to do with this dish. There is no record at all of anything like this stuff existing anywhere around when and where he lived and worked. It could be a linguistic anomaly, a similar sound to his name passed down over generations. Hunan cuisine chef Peng Chang-kuei fled mainland China during that nations's civil war and settled, as did many, in what is now known as Taiwan. He cooked there until 1973 when he
left the continent to settle in New York City, where he experimented with new dishes and allegedly introduced the sweet, spicy concoction to the American menu. That's one story anyhow. There are, as with nearly every food item, more than a few claims to the origin, what is known is that it first appeared in the U.S. in the early 1970's
3. Pork Noodles (lo mein). In Japan this was called yakisoba. Chinese spiced and sauced . . .  spaghetti. . . with small strips of pork, onions, etc. I like noodles.
On the side we added steamed dumplings, a pair of crab Rangoons
and a couple of egg rolls. 'Rangoon' refers to the former capital of Myanmar (Burma) and there is a similar food item to what we know from Burma (Myanmar) BTW, Rangoon is more correctly 'Yangon'. Because, of course it is.
The version we know commonly was invented in San Francisco, perhaps at Trader Vic's. You see, there is no history, at all, of cream cheese in Southeast Asia, or pretty much any other kind of cheese.

So we peeled it all open and dived in, each a little of everything, just like at a real buffet, but without the frog legs.
Let me lead off by asking you: "What the hell is up with making the fried rice day-glow yellow and for the love of any god or gods you choose, WHY?
I've seen this in a few places. Probably turmeric, nature's own food coloring. It adds little to nothing to the taste and used like this, in my opinion, is a bit off-putting. It doesn't look anywhere near natural. I don't need to sparkle up a potato, what's wrong with natural brownish beige in a starchy side?
There, got that off my chest.
Summary:
So how was it? One word, Adam could have said it for us. Fine. It was all just fine.
Nothing was outstanding and nothing was terrible. Beside the pencil-yellow rice, the steamed dumplings had a structural problem. There was a lot of dough and only a little happy ending (filling). The dough to filling ratio was out of whack.

The taste of the filling was. . . fine, but there was a lot of essentially tasteless, chewy dough to go through to get to it.
But that's pretty much as bad as it gets. In every other aspect it was quite. . .  fine. Acceptable, good enough.
Sometimes that's all you need. Chinese food like this is not haute cuisine. It's working people food. It's cheap, there are several options, and it fits perfectly with the American lust for wrapped and floured fried meats. Kids even like the stuff.
I am of course spoiled. I served and ate for three years in Japan and South Korea. It's a different thing. Some of the stuff we have here wasn't even available there. (however, if you like deep fried squid heads on a stick, you are in luck.)
I left the service after that tour and settled, for over fifteen years, in the modern day Mecca of Americanized Chinese food, Springfield, Mo. I am indeed spoiled.
There's a Chinese place nearer to my home than China King. We ate there, once and only once. For the past few years we've settled for the two places in Festus, China King can easily join that pair as a good-enough place to go for Chinese takeout.
Sometimes you have to settle. After Springfield, we lived for five years on the Chesapeake Bay in Southern Maryland. I have not had a decent crab cake since then. There are some I can settle for, but they are not the ideal. And that's okay. China King is plenty good enough. If I want steak and lobster, I'll get steak and lobster. On a busy weekend when I just crave Chinese, this will do just fine if it means I do not have to drive to Seoul or Misawa.
To all the FB post responders in Desoto, thanks for participating! Let's do this again sometime!

Oriental Buffet

774 S. Truman Blvd.
Festus, Mo.

After last week's very disappointing Chinese (Panda Express) meal, we needed to refresh our palates. One of the most telling indicators that the food wasn't that good was that no one ever touched any of the leftovers. Angel says that's a sure sign that it was just wrong.
So we decided to go to a decent Chinese place and rub the Panda's face in it.
The Place:
Less than one mile south of, and on on the same road as Panda.  PE is on a lot just north of the big Walmart, Oriental Buffet is in a shopping center on the lot south of Wally World. Yeah, that close. It doesn't appear that their business has suffered much from the big Hibachi Grill, also less than a mile away, or the mighty Panda. OB looked as clean, well staffed and popular as ever. Overhead, twangy Chinese instrumentals played quietly, as if a part of nature itself.
The steamer trays were loaded up. The first station, for  sushi, was offering pretty and colorful stuff in sticky rice, stuff that I will never take. I just don't like sticky rice.
We were greeted at the front counter and immediately led to a four top in the middle of the tidy dining area. Without even sitting down, we gave our drink orders, tea, tea and coke and were pointed toward the ample serving area. Yeah, that fast.
The Food:
The offerings at Panda were very limited. Not here, I counted seven or eight types of chicken, several types of shrimp and other seafood, including frog legs, lots of wrapped fried things, different kinds of rice and noodles, a whole station for salads, another for desserts. . .  you get the point.
We loaded up. As usual I took small samples of lots of things, rice, noodles five different chickens, bourbon, honey, orange, black pepper and General Tso. I also grabbed a spring roll a rangoon, a couple of fried shrimp and some pepper beef. In other words, everything I 'd had from the Panda, plus much more.
By the time we returned to the table, the drinks were waiting. It just doesn't get faster from order to forkful than this.

Angel's plate looked similar, though she'd also found some sauteed green beans and had some chicken on a stick. Adam had some of his favorites, broccoli (blech!), white rice and sweet and sour chicken. I like sweet and sour, but for some reason, buffets around here think that the chicken for it needs to be coated like a corn dog in breading. When I make sweet and sour at home, it's no different than that for the other sauce/coating options, very lightly breaded, just enough to make it crisp.
The first thing I dug into was the noodles. I love noodles. But I like fried rice as well. This poses a dilemma at some non-buffet Chinese places, noodles or rice, rice or noodles. That's why I love a buffet, I can get both.
Angel  and I agree, the rice here was so much better than at the Panda. Which is ridiculous, fried rice

is one of the simplest things to make. You certainly don't crowd it with veggies, especially corn. Who puts corn in fried rice? But I repeat myself.
Even Hibachi, the colossal buffet on the nearby hill makes better rice, and chicken and everything else. Even though when we did a two night comparison a while back, Hibachi lost out a little to the Oriental Buffet.
There wasn't a lot of conversation while we cleaned our plates. And clean them, we did.  This was a great idea, to restore our respect for the cuisine.
We all had small dessert plates, mine, of course was banana pudding, with a vanilla wafer, and the bananas in thick red sauce you only find at Chinese places.
Summary:

Simple. Everything was better than at the Panda. It was fast, had a much wider variety and as if that weren't enough, the bill came in six dollars under what we paid at the Panda.
I've had better Chinese food. Primarily when I was stationed in Japan. But that's a bit of a drive, I doubt that I will ever have that again. However there's also Springfield, Mo. where Angel is from and where I spent seventeen years of my own handsome life. Springfield is where you find the best Americanized Chinese food in the country. Seriously, it doesn't get better. If you've ever had 'Cashew Chicken' or as it is known some places, 'Springfield Style', you'll understand, it was first created there.
However, I don't live there anymore either. So The quest is constant to find at least pretty good versions. In our vicinity, in the small window of driving time we can allow for these weekly excursions, Oriental Buffet wins every time.
The tea isn't very good, just ask for water instead, there's so many great flavors on your plate that you don't need to worry about what you drink.
The staff is efficient, tidy, busy and quickly on the spot to remove plates or refill your tumbler. The price is right, the selection and quality is a lot better. AND they have takeout options!
I do not understand why anyone would prefer the third rate food at Panda Express over this place. Of course, I also don't understand why there's always a line at the drive through at White Castle. Some people just want crap, I guess.

Panda Express

612 S. Truman
Festus, Mo.
On the Web

Easy pick. Since it sits beside the Walmart in Festus, we knew it was coming. I was actually looking forward to reviewing it, for all the wrong reasons. More on that later. You may know Panda from the many, many mall installations of the brand. The first Panda Express opened in 1983 by the Cheng family. Master Chef  Ming Tsai Cherng had been operating the very popular Panda Inn in Pasedena, California for ten years prior to he and his son, Andrew, opening the first Express in the Glendale Galleria. Pioneers in the 'Quick Service' Chinese food market. Today, there are over 1700 Panda Express locations. All locations are wholly owned by the parent company, there are no franchises.
I was already in Festus, I'd just had my head examined, well part of it anyhow. it was my eyes. Regular readers are aware of my ongoing issues with my eyesight. My eyeglass prescription ran out a few months ago and I've been mentioning (whining) it to Angel for quite a while. She has been encouraging (nagging) me to get some new ones. I, of course, get my optical needs met at Walmart. It turns out that there was a problem with my existing prescription, it was too strong. My eyesight had actually improved, probably due to my lowered blood pressure, cholesterol and weight over the past two years. I went out on a limb with the new frames, they are completely different than anything I've had the last thirty years or so.
Angel had a really busy day so we'd set this plan in place earlier in the week. I'd pop in and order a bunch of stuff, take it home and lay it all out buffet style.
The Place:
As I said, next to the big Walmart in Festus.

Brand new, so 'clean and tidy' was almost a given. The decor was nice, subdued, not plastic-y. As you go in you pass a few tables and step up to the line. The ordering/serving line is in front, glass fronted so pedestrians can't spit or sneeze into the food. The offerings are in steamer trays, much like you'll find at a buffet. Overhead is a menu with prices.
Desteny (yes, that's how she spells it.) stepped forward after welcoming me. I was still studying the overhead when she asked if she could help. I asked her about portion sizes adding the part about the in-home buffet.
She pointed out a combo, a Panda Feast, with three meats and two sides. This feast goes for thirty bucks.
The Food:
I okay'd her suggestion. We started with the meats. Not that there were a lot of them to choose from, compared to a buffet, or even to the nearby family owned Chinese place, Lam's. I went with things that were similar to what we would get at a buffet.
Orange Chicken, Beef Broccoli and Black Pepper Chicken.
The sides were a cinch, Fried Rice and White Rice. (Adam prefers the white.) I surreptitiously added two egg rolls and two orders of cheese rangoons. This brought the total up to thirty nine and change. Desteny asked if I wanted to round it up to forty and donate the change to some sort of children's charity. Sure, I was in a charitable mood.
Behind the serving line was the prep area/kitchen. Part of the Panda philosophy is to let people see the food being made to assure the customers that it was clean and was not made from cats.  I can appreciate that, there's a Springfield Mo. favorite called Cashew Chicken that somehow picked up the nickname Cashew Kitten.
I'm sure no one cooks with cats anymore. . . (I told you I was feeling charitable)
She scooped up the chosen portions into stereotypical red and paper boxes. No wire handles, which  was disappointing since I like totally pointless things.
The egg rolls looked overcooked and the rangoons looked as though they'd been sitting under a heat lamp for an hour or two.
I paid up, grabbed my package and left, racing home to put the stuff in the fridge. . .it was a bit early.
By the time Angel got a break and Adam limped out of his room for the first time that day (he works nights), an hour had passed, but the stuff in the boxes was still pretty warm. I plucked some rice, the two chickens an egg roll and a couple of rangoons out of their boxes and wrapper and populated a plate. I set the reactor two one minute to heat it back up, but not actually cook it further. If a Chinese feast suffers from reheating, it was not real Americanized Chinese food to begin with.
Angel was already feasting, watching Jurassic Park, again. I think that movie is on all the time somewhere, she seems to find it a lot.
I joined her in the adjoining recliner, because that's how we dine at home. Adam joined a couple of minutes later.
The Orange Chicken, PE's biggest seller, was sweet and there was a very slight hint of flavoring, it might have been orange. After two or three nuggets though, the sweetness started to numb my tongue. By the end of the five or so chunks I'd selected, I was queasy. Don't be fooled, it may say 'orange', but this caramelized sticky coating is mostly just sugar. The pepper chicken lived up to its name. Black pepper, lots of it. Too much, by a mile. I could only handle a very small portion. I didn't try the broc and beef but the word I got from both Angel and Adam was "Where's the sauce?" and "I think they forgot something."
The rangoons were a little greasy, not especially crisp and after chewing, there seemed to be a dusty aftertaste. It was as if the wonton wraps were hard frozen and thawed a few times, breaking down the structure of the dough. The egg roll, besides being over-fried, tasted very heavily of ginger. I can't handle that as a primary flavor. If you like heavy handed ginger, you might think more highly of it than I did. The rice was bland. Angel noted that it was too crowded with veggies, especially corn. "Who puts corn in fried rice?" She asked rhetorically, I hope.
As I polled the room, one thing was abundantly clear. No one was really impressed with anything. The highest praise for anything peaked at 'Okay.'
Adam did say, trying to be positive, "It was good for what it was."
In other words, if fast-food quality and service is what you want in your Chinese meal, well, here you go.
Summary:
First  and foremost, before it gets ugly, the service and staff I encountered at the store were very pleasant, attentive and professional. Desteny was excellent, patiently explaining things to an arrogant and ignorant novice.
Through no fault of anyone in Jefferson County, this place represents a disheartening race to the bottom. This is what fast food joints of this particular generation, regardless of offerings, brings to the gastronomic landscape. Everybody knows that the soggy, flat, lifeless burgers you get in a Happy Meal looks nothing like those McD's ads you see on TV or even in-store banners. . I mean, it's right there!
Fast, cheap, greasy or sweet, turn the customers as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible. Make every item at every one of the thousands of locations taste exactly the same, no innovation, no tweaking, stick with the lowest common denominator script. Panda Express is to Chinese food what Taco Bell is to Mexican cuisine. It's an embarrassment. It's an admission that we will gladly trade away the idea of  'quality and value' for 'fast and cheap'.
This is the 'value' Panda Express brings to Festus. Within five minutes of this location, I know of at least four more Chinese places, two of them buffets. You can get some really good, fresh(er) Chinese food, just as quickly and definitely for the same price or less. At Panda, I paid $40 for this family feast, I can 'all-you-can-eat-buffet' three people for less than that, in very close proximity.
Come on folks, we deserve better.
BTW, There's a new restaurant going up in the Desoto Walmart parking lot! Taco Bell.  Yeah. . .

Lucky China

4038 Butler Hill Rd.
St. Louis, Mo.

This was no accident. In fact you could say we went our of our way for it. A long way.
We'd planned this event a couple of months back. Angel's birthday was earlier in the week, we were celebrating it this weekend. We made reservations in a large suburb and the state's ninth largest city, St. Charles.
St. Chuck was the home of Missouri's first capitol from 1821 to 1826.  North and west of St. Louis on the Missouri River, it was considered the last 'civilized' stop for Lewis and Clark's westward exploration in 1804.
It was originally founded decades earlier by French Canadian fur traders. Fur trading used  to be a big thing, almost a common form of currency. That is, until PETA wiped out the fur business.
Those of you that know the St. Louis area are looking at the above address for the Lucky China and scratching your heads at this point. The place is nowhere near St. Charles, no matter where you start.
It's located in what is known as 'South County' (St. Louis County) across the Meramec River from Arnold. It's not only in South County, it's near the southernmost point of South County.
So our drive from Hillsboro first went north, then east, then we headed north and west for around forty five more minutes.
Yes there are lots of places to eat closer to, along the way and in St. Charles. There are lots of Chinese places along that more direct route as well.
But it was her birthday. You don't argue with that.
The plan was simple. Grab some Chinese takeout, go to the hotel, plug in the portable DVD player and start binge watching, in this case season 8 of '24'.
Then pop open the food and lay it out, buffet style and tada! You have a party.
Angel loves her job as a dog trainer and boarder. She runs the business out of our property so she never really gets to leave work. She's usually busy from seven in the morning until around nine at night, seven days a week.  So these getaways allow her to really relax and get away from it for a while. Her assistant and Adam manage the dogs at home and are fully capable of handling things. We've done this before, we'll do it again.
The Place:
We came across this place on a previous getaway, back in December, for my birthday. It was near where we were staying then. It was that good.
By appearance it is a typical Chinese takeout place in a shopping center. Even when you step inside, it's about the same. Above the counter, large photos of various dishes, behind the counter a young Chinese man and at one of the tables a lone Chinese school-aged girl sat coloring or playing with a toy pulled from a nearby laundry basket full of stuffed animals. It was apparently a first-generation Chinese-American family establishment. Various animated conversations in Chinese poured out from the kitchen.
The Food:
The plan was to order a couple of entrees, some fried rice, a couple of egg rolls and two orders of

crab Rangoons.  This time we went with the sesame chicken and the beef with peppers. We asked the young man what kind of rice was standard issue, he replied white. We asked for an upgrade to fried. "That'll cost more." He said. He didn't know that this was Angel's birthday getaway, we pulled out all the stops.
We waited for a while, long enough to get the impression that this was made to order, not pre-made and sitting in a steamer in the back. It was a beautiful day though, one of the first nice days of the year. I didn't even need a jacket outside. I wandered around the parking lot and watched a brother and tall, lanky sister bounce a basketball to each other in front of a shoe store.
When I went back in Angel was sitting at a table with her new smartphone, swiping through an app of some kind.
The young man called our order and we hit the road for the long trek north.
When we do this we get a specific room type. Sort of high end that not every place offers. The room is usually on the first floor, with a large TV, a king bed, a microwave and small fridge. Sure lots of places have those things, but not many have an in-room Jacuzzi. Yeah, I spoil my lady! On this occasion it was the Country Inn on old Main street in Historic St. Charles.
Main Street is made up of cobblestone/brick streets and many of the restored and maintained buildings dating back to the early 1800's. A beautiful area, but we weren't there to sight-see this time. Once Angel got into the room, I don't think she left it until we departed on Sunday morning. I ventured out for coffee at the reception area and muffins and bacon from the complimentary breakfast bar.
We got to the room, plugged in the portable DVD player, fired up some Jack Bauer. "Everybody down!!!" 
We laid out the food, picked and chose.
The Rangoons, the star of the meal, were once again, perfect. Crispy all over, not doughy on the bottom. Slightly sweet, but light and tasty. Actual krab chunks were evident. We'd asked for two orders of these, some for the meal, some for snack/dessert.
 The rice was perfectly cooked, not too salty. The entrees were an instant hit. Sesame chicken is often very sweet, Lucky's a little less so. Small chicken nuggets, still moist and also crispy. The veggies in the steak and peppers were also perfectly cooked, and large. The beef was tender, unlike at a lot of places where it can have the consistency of a bicycle tire.
The egg rolls were smaller than some places, but the flavors inside them was very well balanced.
We gorged ourselves in no time, Jack's body count was barely even in the low teens by that point.
We revisited the Rangoons a few times, once, with evening coffee.
We brought the leftovers home, Lunch.
Summary:
For some reason, several reasons probably, this unassuming and generic looking little Chinese take-out place is a cut or two above the rest. Yes, it is that good. There is quality of the food, the prep and even the presentation. Yes, it was worth adding about an hour of driving to our little weekend getaway. The price is what you might expect from a place like this, thirty something dollars for our two-meal-plus feast. A real bargain.
Our anniversary is coming up in June and if not before then, we will be going back. Highly recommended!

Siam Express

10308 Business 21
Hillsboro, Mo

First things first. It was a three day weekend for me, Presidents Day. I like this holiday since not everyone shuts down for it like they do for the big ones, 4th of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Boxing Day. So that means I can actually get something done other than just sitting around the house. I celebrated January's MLK day by getting my car inspected, something that takes a few hours and is best done during the week. This time, I pretty much just sat around the house and watched the History Channel. I could have done something else though.
Saturday and Sunday Adam and Angel traveled to Springfield, Mo. to celebrate somebody's birthday or something, I forget the details. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself and tending to our own dogs in situations like this. I can feed myself and generally manage the house. Especially since I know Angel's cell phone number. I only had to call her twice this time. Besides, Diana, Angel's able assistant, was going to be stopping by several times to tend to the client dogs and the fosters that I was not familiar with. Diana's great, very good with the dogs and a superb photographer as well.
I could have eaten anything, made something myself, but hey, why not party like a bachelor? So I ordered a pizza. The plan, order a large one and graze on it all weekend. So I did. On Thursday, I handed my order to Adam to take to Pizza Junction with him on Friday. He works there. I spent nearly a half hour listing toppings, tweaking, adding, deleting, until I decided I had designed the perfect multi-meal pizza.
 14 inch, traditional crust, Junction pizza sauce, mozzarella and provolone cheese,  pepperoni, pork sausage, Italian sausage, bell peppers, onions and a half-dose of bacon. I wanted a little bacon but I did not want it to overpower the other toppings. When I got home from work on Friday night, there it was. "I brushed garlic butter around the edge of the crust." Adam said. He'd made it himself, bless his little heart.
It was phenomenal, perfect, awesome. It was even better than you are imagining it was. I noticed the garlic butter, subtle, but just the right classy touch. I actually do love PJ's pizza. I don't care for their tea much, but this weekend I made my own. However, by post-breakfast Sunday I took the remaining pieces, wrapped them in wax paper and stuck them into a freezer bag. It was indeed very, very good, but even I can get too much of a good thing. By that afternoon I was craving soup and salad. We still want them to name our family's absolute favorite, a chicken, steak and Alfredo sauce pizza, after us. 'The Bentley' See, it sings! I don't think that's too much to ask.*

The Place:
Just off business 21 and Pioneer in Hillsboro. A small place sharing a building with a tax firm and maybe something else.
Siam refers to the old name for Thailand. That's a country in Asia, I think. Its capital is of course, Bangkok, made famous by the song 'One Night in Bangkok' from the concept musical 'Chess' written by Tim Rice, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. I don't know who Tim Rice is, but Björn and Benny are the two guys from ABBA, which is, without dispute, the greatest musical group of all time. The Bangkok song, which might be Thailand's national anthem, I'm not sure,  was sung most prominently by Murray Head. "Who?" You ask? Head's the guy famous for singing the theme from 'Jesus Christ Superstar' That guy.
Siam itself,  Thailand, is probably most famous for creepy cats. I'm sure there's other interesting stuff to know about the country, but I've noticed that most of you have really short attention spans, so I'll not bother you with actual research. Look it up for yourself.
We've been wanting to try this place for a while, but that's been tough since they are only open Monday through Friday. However, President's Day. I drove by it earlier in the day Monday and took the sign picture, went inside and asked for a take-out menu. The plan was to do it take-out, family style; order three or four main courses, add some rice and egg rolls, then mix and match as we feel like it. It's the kind of thing we do when a Chinese place is not a buffet.
The place is small, only five or six tables. It looked clean though and not over-decorated.
Everything we'd heard about it, including online reviews were quite positive.
It is not, as the name might suggest, a Thai restaurant. It is much more like a traditional Americanized Chinese place.
 So we called in our order. Sesame Chicken, Cashew Chicken, Beef and Broccoli, Pepper Steak, one egg roll, one order of three Crab Rangoons, two small fried rice, one small steamed rice. The lady on the phone said it would be ready in about forty minutes. Angel had a dog coming in, so I volunteered to make the run. I went in and waited behind the only other customer as he scanned the overhead menu. The proprietor had the phone squeezed into her neck while writing. I looked around. Six four-tops, one booster chair and exactly one Asian themed print on one wall. No gaudy bric-a-brac, no Chinese lanterns. It was decorated in what I can only describe as 'generic'. They could be a pizza place or a sandwich shop without changing a thing. The kitchen was behind a wall. Only a sliding glass window, behind which was where the proprietor stood, perforated the wall.
There were a couple of bookshelf speakers mounted on that wall, out of which poured a lively gospel song. That's different, I thought to myself. That's right, I'm not a gospel/contemporary Christian music fan. It's right up there with country on my long list of music that I will avoid listening to if at all possible. I don't mean to say that it's objectively awful, only that it is well outside my taste zone. I was glad that this was take-out though. Another similar song came on, after some radio station ID break. I'm pretty sure whatever that station was is not one of my car's radio buttons. It's not about the message, it's just something I do not enjoy.
I could smell the food, this pleased me. While waiting, I counted the floor tiles. They were 12" inchers. I measured the dining room to be twelve by fourteen feet. A small place indeed.
The gentleman gave his order and took a seat at one of the tables. I stepped up and announced my order. She smiled and said she'd check on it. She disappeared for a minute, then returned saying they were bagging it at that moment. I checked my watch, it had been precisely forty minutes. I greatly appreciated the timeliness.
As she tapped in the ticket I asked her how long they'd been open.
"Twenty years."
"Really?"
"Yeah, this year it will be twenty."
I must have looked perplexed. She smiled and asked "How long you been here?"
"Seven years."
"This is your first time here?" She looked a little concerned.
"Yeah, I'm very sorry about that, for not coming in sooner."
She smiled. "That's okay, we've been pretty much word of mouth. The landlord finally let us put up a better sign though."
The whole order fit into one grocery sized bag, expertly packed, orderly and tight. Like it was packed by someone who had been doing it for twenty years.
I found out somewhere in our chat/settling up that this was a family owned place, her and her husband.
I paid up, forty two dollars and change. I signed the slip and asked for a receipt.

The Food:
When I arrived back at the compound, there was a Mini-Cooper in the drive, the training building and pens were all lit up. The client had arrived on time.

I emptied the bag of the little cartons, those ubiquitous wire-handled boxes that are uniquely Chinese. Well, except that they aren't. Like fortune cookies and General Tsao, they are almost completely foreign toChina. NPR did a piece on that this week, how some ex-pats, missing their Americanized Chinese food while living in China decided to open up restaurants that made and served the stuff. Turns out the Chinese people are mostly quite receptive to the strange, foreign delights served up there, including those funny little boxes.
Adam and I popped open the cartons, they'd been labeled with initials indicating what was what.
I pulled one of my Asian plates out of the cupboard and loaded it up. Two Rangoons, a portion of rice, sesame chicken, some of the pepper steak and one chunk of the Cashew chicken. The first thing I noticed, delighted in, were the big thick veggies in the steak. Onions, peppers and celery, wok'ed perfectly.The second thing I liked with my eyes was the rice. It was the proper color, not yellow or orange as is common in many places in the area. The third thing was the size of the chicken chunks, not too big.
Adam loaded up his plate with his favorites, the steamed rice, some sesame and cashew chicken and the beef and broccoli (blech!).
About the time we were finished plating we heard the Mini fire up and leave.
Angel joined us within a few minutes.
I headed to the table, propped open my book, and jumped in.
The sesame chicken was perfect, sweet, but not too sweet, and as I said, the nugget size was dead on.
The rice was pretty good, nothing fancy, not heavily flavored. The beef strips were thin and tender, the veggies, excellent indeed. The cashew chicken was not what I expected, it was definitely not Springfield Cashew Chicken. I knew Angel would say something about that. She did. It wasn't bad, but she was in Springfield the day before, and well, you know, that town is the Mecca of Americanized Chinese food.  Later she added that the egg roll was a bit doughy and too  heavy on the carrots for her tastes. The broccoli (blech!) however, she said was perfect. I'll take her word for that. Adam enjoyed it all very well. He'd been in Springfield too, so that's a high grade.
I did not go for a second plate, I still had some pizza to work off.
Summary:
Not bad at all. A couple of little issues, but nothing terrible. Compared to other Chinese options in Hillsboro, this was hands-down the better of them. There's one other Chinese place in Hillsboro that I have never reviewed and vowed I never will. I ate there once, or maybe twice, didn't care for it at all. That's all I''m going to say about it. Siam Express beats them on every single note.
We've had better Chinese, but like I've said, we're from Springfield. Having a place this good in Hillsboro is quite a treat. To get better we'd have to drive for a half hour or more.
The price? It may seem steep, but we were building a buffet that will last at least one more full meal and some evening grazing. If we were to zoom in on specific combination plates it would have been only  eight or nine bucks each. We went deliberately overboard  to give it a solid tasting. We were not disappointed. We got our money's worth, easy.
I shouldn't even have to say it was good. The fact that they've been open for twenty years in this small town already screams that it is a pretty good place to eat. But take my word for it, now that you know about the  place, you really need to try it.



* Apologies for the gratuitous plug. I have it on good authority that there are certain members of the PJ management team that read this blog regularly. If I can't use this soapbox for a little gentle coercion from time to time what kind of lily-livered soul would I be?

Oriental Buffet

774 Truman Blvd.
Crystal City, Mo.

The Place, The Food, Summary:
Sometimes the weekend sneaks up on us and we find ourselves unprepared. This past weekend was that exactly. None of us had given the task much thought. This is a bad situation in our house since between the three of us, there are no type-A decision makers. Or type B, or maybe even C or D. Getting any of us to come up with something on our own that we confidently think will appeal to everyone else is nothing short of miraculous.
There are a couple of places that require no thought at all and will usually be agreed upon quickly. Oriental Buffet is one of those places.
We've been there several times, so I'll keep this short.
It has two things going for it right out of the gate. First it's a buffet, everybody gets something they like. Secondly, it's nearby. There are bigger and/or better buffets, but none anywhere near as close.
So we drove there, went in, ordered our drinks, tea, Diet Coke and Coke, and headed for the lines.
I didn't have to sample things, I know what is good and not so good here. So I plopped down some noodles, a couple of the chickens, General Tsao and black pepper style, some pepper beef, a rangoon,  some shrimp and a pot sticker.
Angel had some seafood, an egg roll and some mushrooms, rice and some kind of chicken. Adam went for the standard, white rice and sweet/sour chicken.
Two fails in front of me. The tea, probably the worst in town and the pot sticker. This is not a news flash, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before. This time the dumplings were rubbery, like ill-prepared calamari.
Most of the rest of the stuff was pretty good. Not great, fantastic or phenomenal, just pretty good.
We all finished round one about the same time,  I thought about seconds, didn't want much, so I decided just to hit the dessert line. I got what I usually get, the bananas and red sauce over some banana pudding. It was fine, though since I've backed off sugar consumption lately it tasted good but it unsettled my tummy and my general outlook on life, which probably reflects in the darker - ho-hum tone of this review . Not the food's fault per se, it's my stupid changing (deliberately) metabolism that is growing increasingly intolerant of sugar and a few other things. So it's not really a bad thing either.
'Or-Buff' is fine. Since it is a buffet it's hard to complain since everybody tailors their own plates and portions. Something doesn't win you over, you just skip it and get something else. This makes buffets very hard to rate against other places, so I can only compare it to other buffets. Of all the buffets in the greater St. Louis Metro region, Oriental Buffet in Crystal City is certainly one of them.
Thirty four dollars and change, for those of you keeping score.

Hibachi Grill

and Supreme Buffet
8925 Watson Rd
St Louis, MO

We all failed to plan ahead, we all blamed each other, we are family after all, we put the 'dis' in dysfunctional.
So the conversation heading out the door went like this.
"Okay, how about Chinese?"
" Where?"
"I don't know, Festus maybe."
"I'd rather go to a place with more variety, like the Hibachi Grill."
That's a long way."
"About twenty minutes."
"Not at rush hour."
"It's not rush hour, it's Saturday."
"Oh."
So we went.
The Place:
Just past the defunct Crestwood Mall.
A large place, very large, there's no mistaking it for a gas station or a book store. We stepped inside to the large, heavily decorated foyer. On either side of the door, large, bright enameled vases stood next to large bamboo plants. They spare no expense on the Asian themed decorating. In this big place it was all bigger and brighter, gaudier.
The themed decor was thick in the main dining area as well. Even the buffet lines, one full sized serving line was encased in varnished blonde wood built as a boat. There were ceiling panels painted as a bright blue sky with puffy white clouds. Fat, bald brass icons, bamboo, silkscreen art, it was all there. There was no mistaking this place for anything other than a Chinese buffet.
They put a lot of money into Hibachi Grill, nothing about it looked like it came from the budget end of a restaurant supply company. It all looked custom and expensive.
We were taken to a table and we situated and ordered our drinks, tea, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi.
The Food:
Mmmmm, buffet... and a big one. Dozens of chickens and porks and fish, shrimp, froglegs, and those snotty shelled slugs and mussels. Lots of rice, noodles and of course the obligatory wrapped and fried savory treats and rolls.
Lots of purely American offerings as well. Mac and cheese, ribs and something they called hot dog pie. These were inch long chunks of hotdog wrapped in brown and shiny pie crust, deep fried I assumed.
I hadn't had Chinese in a while so I was game for almost anything, maybe not the hot dog pie though. As is my custom I tried a couple of chunks of nearly all the chicken, General Tsao's, Crispy, Honey, Teryaki, sesame. I also grabbed a couple of rangoons and something called a lobster roll.   It looked like a long wonton wrapper wrapped around a Slim Jim and deep fried. I had low expectations but I cannot walk by lobster very often, even if it is fake lobster.
I knew there was that chance since I'd also grabbed a couple of toothpick-pinned krab wrapped in bacon. The fried rice did not tempt me, it was bright orange. I have no idea how they got it that orange short of melting down some safety cones. The noodles looked more traditional though so I slapped a big pile onto my plate. then there were the steamy and bright red crawdads.
That was about it, a plateful of food, plenty of variety.
Angel was already back to the seat with a seafood pile on her plate. She likes mussels and clams and that sort of thing, so there was a lot of that. She'd also grabbed a crawdad and some stuffed shrimp and bacon wrapped krab. There were some sauteed green sticks on her plate, either okra or green beans, I don't recall.
Adam came back with thick-breaded sweet and sour chicken, plain rice and some broccoli and beef.
I picked and sampled, the Mongolian pork was too peppery for my tastes, the lobster roll was more wrap than anything else, if there was lobster in it I never tasted it. Most of the chicken was spot on, exactly as expected. Which was pretty sweet after a while. Angel and I agreed that the fried/steamed dumplings were quite good, not overwhelmed with ginger as we find it in many places. She also applauded the stuffed shrimp. She issued a 'blech' for the calamari though. My noodles were indeed excellent, sometimes basic simple recipes are what you want.
Adam finished his quickly, left and cam back with ribs. Angel decided she'd like some too so her second trip was less slime, more real meat. Her ribs turned out to be a bit fatty though.
I didn't want much more. I considered my options, decided that I'd pretty much had all my favorites, so I sat for a minute and finally just went straight to dessert.
The usual, red-sauce bananas and banana pudding, some sort of apparent theme.
Angel's plate contained a pie looking wedge, some more stuffed shrimp and a couple of pretty sushi's. the red-centered sushi was filled with fish eggs which sort of popped in her mouth, this delighted and amused her. The fried sushi, not so much. The pie thing was 'like cheesecake' she said.
Adam was quite content, uttering  garrulous phrases of praise like "Good", "Pretty good", and " " surround by a shoulder shrug. Adam knows lots of words, I made sure of that raising him, he just spends them like a miser.

Summary:
One of the better Chinese buffets I've been to. More so because of the enormous variety than the actual quality of food itself. Not that the quality is bad, not at all. The food is as good as anywhere else. Nothing really jumps out, nothing really qualifies as a signature dish, but there was nothing awful, it was all pretty fresh, and the serving tables were in constant state of refill. A large dining area makes sure of that.
The bill came to thirty seven dollars and change, not bad at all for the area and certainly not bad for the potential infinite amount of food offered.
The staff was plentiful and efficient, there was rarely more than one finished plate on our table, the drinks never fell below half full.
The atmosphere was great, the place was huge and spacious, and bustling.  The bold and bright decorations may have been a little over the top, but somehow it worked.
Hibachi Grill has a terrific template going. I've been to a couple of different ones and the model is copied form place to place with precision. This is not a strip-mall buffet, they take what they do to a higher level. Good food, lots of variety, and fast service.

Lam's Garden: Take-out

510 Bailey Rd.
Crystal City, Mo

Pizza Hut Supreme

Those of you that pay attention to such things might have noticed that there was not an update last week. That is due entirely to the fact that this blogging thing does not pay as well as you might think, which means I have a day job. That job occasionally requires me to work weekends, and this is why for this week, and last week, I was not able to go out with my family.
I was able to work from home, but I had appointed tasks during the dinner hours, so I had to stay put.

Pizza Hut Hot wings

Last week we picked up a couple of pizzas from Pizza Hut in Desoto. We picked up two large pizzas, a Supreme for Angel and I and a black olive and pepperoni for Adam. He doesn't like most ingredients. They also picked up some hot wings.
As I worked I munched on a couple of slices and enjoyed it thoroughly. Even better was Sunday brunch, leftover pizza, reheated.
I didn't try the wings, no  point really since the whole hot-wing thing is wasted on me. I've tried several and just have yet to see what the fuss is about. They're incredibly messy, too spicy, and there's not a lot of meat for the mess. Angel and Adam both said they were excellent though.
The pizza was very good. Plenty of toppings, spread out nicely, crust browned and just starting to crisp. There may be better pizzas around, but for taste, texture, price and location, Pizza Hut is our go-to.
This weekend was a little trickier. I suggested we have Chinese take out.
The Place:
Lam's Garden is behind Dairy Queen in Crystal city. We've gone there a few times, you can see the reviews in the archives.
The Food:

Tsao's (left) and Chicken peppersteak

My only real problem with Lam's is that I prefer a buffet when it comes to Chinese food, and Lam's is not a buffet. I like lots of different things Chinese, but strongly prefer to have a little of several things as opposed to a lot of only one thing.
There is a way around this though, take-out-family style.

Sesame Chicken

Adam ordered what he wanted most, the sesame chicken, Angel ordered what she likes best, the cashew chicken (Springfield style) They also ordered the beef broccoli to share.  I asked for two different things. I like the chicken pepper steak and I like the General Tsao. I didn't care for a lot of either, I prefer a little of one and a little of the other for balance. The pepper steak style is served with a beef-stock like sauce, like gravy, and the Tsao is sweet and spicy. They balance nicely.
Each of the orders came with rice and egg rolls or rangoons.
Angel and Adam fetched the food and brought it home. By the time they arrived I was done with my work, so I got to enjoy it at a leisurely pace. We popped open the boxes, all different stuff and voila! Instant buffet.

Cashew Chicken (pre-sauce)

We each loaded a plate with combinations of stuff, just like at a real buffet.
Most of Lam's offerings are better than their local buffet equivalent. So not only was it a buffet, it was like a premium buffet.
I plopped some rangoons, half an egg roll three styles of chicken, sesame, Tsao's and the pepper steak, then a generous portion of rice. To make it even better I used one of my Japanese plates I bought off of Ebay a few years back.

Beef Broccoli

The chickens were all excellent. The Tsao's was spicy but not too much so. The pepper steak was savory and had large scrumptious portions of peppers and onions that mixed well with the rice. The rice itself was a little bland, it lacked brightness. There were veggies mixed in, but their taste was indistinguishable from the rice itself. Shoving the pepper steak veggies into the pile fixed that problem. The rangoons were thickly loaded but in transport had lost a little crispness. The egg roll was better than many places, but not outstanding. Like the rice, the filling in the roll tasted only one flavor deep. The sesame chicken was pretty sweet, but since I only had a little it also balanced well. Usually in one-item Chinese restaurants I avoid sesame chicken to avoid the sugar high a full plate of the stuff will induce, this amount was perfect.
As I filled up on mine, I heard grunts and groans of pleasure from the others. We all agreed that this was pretty darn good.
Summary:

The result, my pretty plate!

 Lam's makes very good food and serves generous portions. Every dish is a little better than you'll find at most typical buffets, at least locally.
We ordered a lot of food and certainly paid a little more than we would have at a buffet. HOWEVER! We got about two meals each for that price, (Sunday brunch again) buffet's don't allow you to take home leftovers.
The price wasn't really all that bad, all that food for under forty dollars.
I wish their rice and egg rolls were a little better, a little fresher. I'm sure they know how to do that, but I imagine they make big batches rather than to-order. That's what it seems like in taste anyhow. We've certainly figured out how to do this though. The home-buffet was perfect, plenty of choices, of good quality Chinese fare.
I love Lam's now that I know I don't have to actually go there.