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.

Oriental Buffet vs. Hibachi Grill

Sometimes comparisons are inevitable.
About a year ago, Hibachi Grill in Festus opened, a mere mile from the Oriental Buffet. We'd been going to the latter for several years, it was small, but they seemed to get the things we like best about right.
When the Hibachi Grill opened, I was worried for the smaller place.
The many Hibachi Grills around the region look the same, large and imposing, with similar interiors styles and offerings, but they are not a franchise outfit. It's more of a shared business model. Each one is independently owned and operated. If there is collusion between them, it apparently happens behind closed doors. All the four or five HG's I'v been to looked, tasted and seemed the same.
OB is, by all appearances also independently owned and operated. It is at the end of a modest strip mall. HG took over a failed Ryan's Steakhouse. A massive free standing building.
HG's have bigger, much bigger, buffet lines. They not only offer Americanized (breaded and fried) Chinese food, which is after all, what we want when we want Chinese, but it also serves a lot of American American things like pizza slices, macaroni, etc. Strip away the non-Chinese serving lines at HG and you'll discover they serve pretty much the same stuff as OB.
HG also caters to big crowds, OB is a bit more intimate, more sit down restaurant like.
So this three day weekend we decided to do a side by side comparison. Was OB holding up despite the Goliath on the nearby hill? Was Hibachi sacrificing quality for quantity?
Let's find out.

Oriental Buffet
774 Truman Blvd
Festus, Mo.

The Place:
At the end of a strip mall Just South of  Highway A. A few years old, but holding up well. The strip mall is anchored by an always busy Aldi's on one end, along with hair places, a big $1 store, the usual stuff.
I noticed walking in that it had not changed much in the year or so since my previous visit. Well lit, nicely decorated, clean and neat. There were the requisite gaudy red, gold and jade objects sitting around, not cluttered though. There were about a dozen tables occupied, maybe 1/3 capacity. This is pretty much the level of occupancy I recall from earlier visits.
We were greeted by a young lady who happily led us to a booth and took our drink orders while we were walking. This proved very efficient since by the time we got to the booth we didn't even bother to sit, we just dropped of our jackets and went straight to the line. I admired the table tops, a large piece of traditional art and calligraphy.
As before, there were a half dozen young people dressed in black pants and white shirts scurrying around the floor, bussing tables, reloading the serving line, refreshing drinks. To my ear they all treated English as very much a second language.
Overhead though, the music was different. It was very low volume, so I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It was definitely a western hemisphere key though. Not the exotic Asian key and instruments that I recalled from a previous visit.
The Food:

We pretty much always get the same things at Chinese buffets, to each of us, our own favorites. I spread it out, just a couple of nuggets each of General Tsao and other chickens, Black Pepper, Teriyaki, etc. Some Beef from the broccoli and beef, and some pepper steak, a few standard shrimp, then some noodles and fried rice, and finally a must-have, a Crab Rangoon.
Angel 's plate had some of those things, but also included an egg roll,
chicken on a stick and green beans.
I like those things too, but the egg roll and stick chicken, were, compared to the other things I had, quite large. Adam's plate looked paler. Broccoli, plain rice, and a Chinese doughnut along with his General Tsao's. Adam doesn't care for fried rice because of the little vegetable chunks they put in it.
There was nothing scary or new on my plate, like I said, we all get pretty much the same thing every time. This was going to be a test of quality, taste and freshness of things we knew well, not an experiment. We would very likely be getting very similar things at HG.
I picked an poked around my variety, tore open the rangoon and let the innards melt on my tongue. It was sweeter than at some places, but not bad, barely any crab taste  at all. The wrapper was crispy on the top and sides, but suffered a little under the liquid load on the bottom. The only place we've found that can prevent their bottoms from getting soggy, was at Lucky China in Arnold. Those at Lucky were the best tasting we'd ever had as well. But these were quite acceptable.
Angel immediately remarked on the freshness of the stick chicken. I asked her if it was dry, as they often tend to be and she said that it was actually moist. Then she pointed to the green beans and said they too were fresh and perfectly cooked. I began to notice the same thing. All the meats were tender and moist. None seemed overcooked or suffered from sitting too long in a steamer tray. That's a problem common in many buffets, food that is kept warm often tends to continue cooking and toughen or dry up. This did not seem like that at all. Even the beef strips fell apart with a gentle pull. The only disappointment for me, and it wasn't a big one, was that the noodles were a bit overcooked, but they were tasty. Nothing was too spicy, or too bland or too sweet, the recipes and preparation at OB was solid. For my second round, unlike what I used to do before my stomach shrank, which was to go back and get two or three of my favorite things, I went straight for the dessert round. The desserts I like at Chinese buffets are hardly traditional, I like the bananas in red sauce topped with banana pudding. I noticed they also had Fig Newtons, another thing I'm rather fond of, so I grabbed one of those as well. Angel grabbed a couple more chicken chunks and some more green beans, some shrimp and added a couple of the rangoons. "Rangoons are kind of like dessert." She said. I nodded, they were kind of sweet at OB.
Summary:
Overall we were quite pleased. A little surprised too, that the quality had not suffered since our last visit, and in fact seemed to be improving. The freshness was notable, but also indicative of a well run, successful restaurant, the dining area was very neat, meticulously cleaned and the staff was plentiful and on the job. Empty plates were taken away and tables were bussed, cleaned and prepped very quickly.
The place never really filled up, but those that were there seemed happy and content. The bill came to a modest and predictable thirty four dollars and change.
Not bad, not bad at all.

Hibachi Grill
331 North Creek Dr.
Festus, Mo.

The Place:
Hibachi Grill took over the former Ryan's Buffet about a year ago. It's big place, easily three times bigger than Oriental Buffet. Hibachi Grills are designed and operated to feed a lot of people. Saturday nights the place is usually packed. On those nights it seems almost industrial, like a busy cafeteria.
It too has the gold and red bric-a-brac on shelves. It also has large statues, reminiscent of the famed Terracotta Army. We were greeted by a young man lady who took us back to a booth/table. He too asked about drinks on the way. Once again we didn't even sit, we went straight to the lines. The decor is a bit loud and gaudy, only on a larger scale. The carpet was very dark, worn and industrial, it robbed from the ambiance, making it seem less polished and clean. The tables were not nearly as ornate, plain faux-marble laminate. The Music overhead was more talk than music. It was a radio station pushed by industrial speakers into an acoustically challenged space. Static, poorly equalized noise. The sound bounced around the high ceiling so much that I couldn't make out the actual words very often. Bad idea.
There were, as promised, more serving lines. Hibachi Grill has one thing that OB doesn't, a Mongolian Barbecue station. I've taken advantage of that before, picking my own combination of meats, veg, noodles and sauce. It's hard to go wrong when you pick your own ingredients. I skipped it this visit.
The Food:
Sure enough, even though there were a lot more buffet lines, all three of us picked out pretty much the same
things. I added a thing or two, like a stuffed crab and 'butter shrimp' just to try them, but other than that, some fried rice, noodles, a couple each of several beefs and chickens and a crab rangoon. The rangoons were noticeably smaller, more like won tons. That's not a bad thing, just a style thing. I like them both ways, the big fat ones can be kind of messy. The meats I got were very close to the same selections from OB. General Tsao, pepper, etc. Also the pepper steak and a slug of thin meat from the broccoli and beef.
Angel and Adam pretty much did the same, even though I had not prompted them to do so. Angel had the egg roll, the chicken on a stick, green beans. Along with that she added some cheesy crab dish and some stuffed mushrooms.
Adam had the chicken, the plain rice, the doughnut, and broccoli.
Selection was where the similarities ended.
My fried rice was, for lack of a better word, mushy. Too wet, it doughed up in my mouth. I can't really comment on the taste since the texture was too off-putting to notice. The noodles were better cooked than at OB but there wasn't any real flavor to them. The chickens, as I had feared, seemed tough and dry, the beef chewy. The rangoon wrapper was not crisp, but not soggy either, sort of stale, very much like chewing on a business card. Once again the texture was enough of a deficit that I can't really speak to the taste.
The extras, the stuffed crab was inedible. The taste was weird, I can't put my finger on it, but once again it was the texture that really killed it. It was gritty, like they sprinkled about a tablespoon of fine sand in with the stuffing. The butter shrimp was neither buttery or shrimp-y. It looked
like salad shrimp with a crust of some kind, but it came out more greasy breading than anything. The green peppers in the sauces all looked pale and seemed a bit tough. the General's chicken was the only thing, other than the real shrimp, that I finished on this plate.
Angel commented the the stick chicken was dry and tough. She admitted that things didn't seem as fresh. Adam shrugged his shoulders.
They were confused. They had eaten there just a week before, without me since I worked that weekend, and said that meal was just fine, much better than this. It wasn't just one or two things, she said.

I made a second run, mostly because I hadn't wanted to eat most of what was on my first plate. I saw some chicken I'd missed before, something called 'Hibachi Chicken' with a green pepper and sauce topping. I also grabbed anther Rangoon to see if the previous one had just been a dud. I hadn't asked Angel about the cheesy crab, so I got a little of that. Then I went ahead and stepped up to the dessert line and plopped down some bananas in . . . . wait a minute, is that sauce . . . orange? Oh well, I topped it with some banana pudding. Just like before.
Angel picked up a few things too, including a stuffed shrimp and some chocolate pudding.
The cheesy crab was awful. It tasted fishy, and not in that good way. The chicken was pretty good though, a little fresher and more tender than the others. Still, the peppers were pale and tough. Overall the best chicken offering that evening. The previous rangoon had not been a fluke, this one too was stale. The red/orange sauce was a little odd, but not terrible, the good news is that the banana pudding was very good, more like the old fashioned kind mom used to make before instant pudding was invented. More vanilla wafers, layered, as well. Angel commented that her pudding was better here as well.
Summary:
The bill came in at a slightly higher thirty nine dollars vs. thirty four, not really enough to squirm about. The service was at least as efficient, plates disappeared quickly. The tea was old, like OB's so no winner there. It should be pretty plain from this review, the whole ordeal was a bit disappointing.

Conclusion:
Well it probably seems clear at this point, and in fact it was unanimous consent, that Oriental Buffet was the winner of this round, by a large margin.
I said 'this round' though. Adam and Angel truly seemed baffled about the fact that they could not believe the difference between the two week-apart meals they'd had at Hibachi. Thinking about it, I had a hunch. We went to Oriental Buffet on a Saturday. Hibachi Grill on a Monday. As I mentioned earlier, on Saturday nights the place is usually packed. On this visit, there was no competition with crowds, a lot of empty tables between diners. HG's food was not being turned as quickly and was sitting much longer than on a Saturday. Hibachi has a lot more food offerings, though a great deal of it is American food, meat loaf, pizza, grilled steak, macaroni and cheese, etc. the kitchen has a lot more work to do to turn out that big variety. Whereas OB concentrates on a much smaller range of food and can tend to that and make more frequent and smaller batches.
So the moral of the story is that if you want to go to Hibachi Grill, go there when it is really busy. Oriental Buffet on the other hand is more consistent exactly because it serves fewer things to fewer people.

Epilouge:
After the meal on Saturday, we had to stop on the way home to give witness statements to the Festus Police and the Highway Patrol. We had stopped at an intersection yielding to oncoming traffic, unlike the guy in the Jeep in front of us. He got slammed by a big pickup going full on through his solid green light. The poor kid in the pickup told me after I called 911 and checked on the drivers, that this was his dad's truck as his own had been stolen earlier in the week. (sad) No one was injured, just two vehicles totaled and a mess of fluids, glass and plastic bits all over the roadway.
On Monday as we got to the Hibachi Grill, as I usually do, I stepped out of the car to take a photo of the signage. I took two as the first one was a bit distant. After we had our disappointing meal we stepped back out to the vast, but mostly empty parking lot to see that the SUV's passenger door, my door, was standing open. Yeah, I'd been so eager about the photo that I forgot to close the door. Nothing was stolen or damaged, just a little embarrassing. I only mention it at all because Angel said I had to mention it or she'd sue me or something. She mumbled something about all the previous times I'd pointed out silly and embarrassing things she's done, though  I don't recall ever doing that.

Hibachi Buffet

331 North Creek Drive
Festus, MO








 Finally! After Months of waiting, Hibachi Buffet opened it's doors on Friday, March 7. If you follow this blog regularly, which you certainly should, you would know that I think this place is a game changer for Festus.
The Place:
Last year Ryans's Buffet abruptly shut down several locations. Within a very short time there were local news reports indicating that Hibachi was taking over the Ryan's location. It's a big place, perfect for their needs.
There are Hibachi's all over the area, even in Springfield, Mo. However they are not a franchise. Each one is independently owned and operated. They do all dutifully follow a business model, layout and and I believe, recipes. Thus they offer pretty much the same things.
Part of that business model is to go big, and invest heavily in classy decor, at least for the entrance. Mural sized stone engravings, crystal-like lighting that shifts colors, large statues, etc. You can tell that there's a huge initial investment in these places.
The entryway was large, it needed to be. When we got there, there was a line. By the time we finished, there was still a line.
Which I found interesting.
Hibachi has almost zero web presence. I have been checking the local paper for updates every week, nothing. On those occasions that I was in Festus, I would look up at the hill and see a sign, 'Coming Soon.'
It was only because Angel went by on Friday that we knew it had finally opened.
It's a big place, and it was packed, and lined up for more.
We're talking hundreds of people on the second night, just in the hour we spent there, with no advertising in any form, other than a 'Grand Opening March 7.' sign in front of the place, along with colorful pennants, like car lots use.
Other restaurateurs probably drool at that sort of prospect. The geniuses behind Hibachi know this area well.  They know exactly what people around here want and they know that don't have to waste money advertising to draw them in.
You pay up front, there are no options other than drink choice. The line moved pretty well, we stepped up. "How many, two?" the lady asked. "Three." Angel replied.
We ordered our drinks, tea, lemonade and Pepsi and waited at  the 'Wait here to be seated counter." Another lady approached, looked at Angel and asked "Two of you?"
"Three" Angel answered.
"Which one of us can they not see?"  I asked. Angel snickered. "You're invisible this evening."
I get that a lot. People at work constantly tell me I sneak up on them. That's me, Mr. Cellophane.*
The place, as I said, was packed. I did notice that there was plenty of staff on hand though, things moved efficiently.
Six or seven steamer lines, aromatic and colorful, paper lanterns were suspended overhead. We were seated at a table and became one group among dozens of others.
The Food:
I decided to do something a little different this time. I went for the Mongolian Grill. There's a couple of places near work that offer these, I've learned to really like them. Offered are raw ingredients. Onions, peppers, mushrooms, bean sprouts, mushrooms, etc. Then there are three or four kinds of thin sliced frozen meats. You take a bowl and mix and match in any combination you like, add some noodles, grab an egg if you want to, and hand the bowl to one of the three or four cooks. They stand around a large round grill. They pour some oil on the grill then plop the stuff in your bowl straight on it. At this location you name your sauce ahead of the grilling. Warning though, if you don't know which of the sauces you want, you would be wise to go with something you recognize. Unlike other places I've been, this place doesn't explain them. I chose 'Mongolian'. Others included Soy Sauce and Teriyaki.
It only takes a few minutes, these guys are good at what they do. They flip it, stir it and slide it onto a plate. My plate was simple. Noodles, onions, green onions, chicken, and peppers, plus one egg. These are things I like. Thus at this station, all the cooks do is heat up what you hand them. If you can handle this sort of pressure, you control the ingredients, portions and seasoning.
On the way to the table I grabbed a couple of  cheese wontons, the closest thing to a Rangoon that I could find. I needed a little crunch with my noodles. The Mongolian sauce is not spicy or hot, it's mild and savory. They offer hotter versions, but like I said, be careful.
Angel and Adam had gone the more traditional route picking many of their familiar favorites. Chicken, shrimp, pot stickers, among them. Adam had plain rice and some broccoli (blech!) and some sweet and sour chicken.
I ate most of my noodles, they were pretty darn good, but I stopped when I realized I needed to sample some of the line offerings. I got up and went around the lines, picking out very small portions of proteins and what the heck, a couple more of those cheese Rangoons. About five or six forms of chicken, then some shrimp. I picked up a pot sticker as well, Angel said they were good.
There was pineapple chicken, bourbon chicken, pepper chicken, and another, I think. The pineapple was sweet, like pineapple, but it also had some kind of pepper on it, maybe chili, and I didn't find that very pleasing. The pot sticker had too much ginger for my tastes, and the bourbon chicken tasted like formaldehyde. All in all I found no real winners in the lot. None of them were really bad, they were all fresh-cooked, but the sauces and seasonings just didn't score very high with my taste buds.
And yes, everything was fresh cooked, you could tell. That much turnover means the cooks must be machines, constantly turning out fresh batches of everything, especially the battered and fried proteins.
I noticed when I sat down that I didn't have any fried rice. Odd, I always get a little fried rice, must have missed it. I mentioned it to Angel and she looked at her own plate. "Hmm, I didn't see any." She said.
I picked through the meats, and had a little more of my noodles. I was nearly full, but I couldn't imagine going to a Chinese buffet and not having bananas in red sauce.
So I made another round.
No bananas in red sauce. This made me sad.

So instead I looked for the fried rice. Found it, it was labeled 'Veggie Fried Rice.' and it was No.2 pencil-yellow. I scooped some up anyhow, just a tasting. I then went back to the dessert line and grabbed a chocolate chip cookie.
My cube-neighbor, Doug,  the fastest human eater alive, had a big bag of home-made chocolate chip cookies on his desk all week. He offered them to everyone telling us to just come by and grab one. I didn't. I stared at those things, smelled them occasionally all week, but never caved to the temptation. However I did think about them often.
So when I saw chocolate chip cookies available on my cheat meal, yeah, I took one. It was overcooked, a little dry, not moist and gooey like those Doug had at work, but I still enjoyed it.
the rice was well cooked, but underwhelming in taste, it barely had any.
Summary:
When I polled the family, the answer I got was good to pretty good, but no rave reviews for anything in

particular. I liked the Mongolian noodles, but no more than other places I've had them. I never found a chicken variety that I would want again, but I hadn't tried them all.
The place was very well staffed, our drinks were refilled regularly and empty plates taken away quickly. I have to say the food was not really that much better than other places. But the variety was much greater. It is simply not possible to not find some things that are to your liking.
This place is indeed genius. Some towns absolutely love their huge buffets. Back when it was Ryan's, there was never, ever a shortage of customers. That place failed for other reasons, not for lack of patrons. It is easy to make fun of the piggish qualities of Midwestern, small town people. However, though certainly not true about all of them, or arguably most of them, there is a valid reason for that stereotype. Go to a place like Ryan's or Golden Corral, or Hibachi and yes indeedy, you'll certainly see quite a few people that end up getting photographed later at Walmart. You know what I'm talking about.
I've said it before, Americanized Chinese food is not health food. It is no better for you, in any measure, than pizza or cheeseburgers. So yes, you can overdo it at these all-you-can-eat places, very, very easily.
The tea was mediocre at best, I'll give it a plus one, simply because it wasn't old. A place like this probably has to be constantly making tea as well, so it doesn't have time to grow stale and bitter.
The price was downright dangerous.$10.39 per adult during dinner hours. For that low amount you can easily find enough of something you like and gorge yourself to the point of exploding. A bargain.
So yeah, the people behind this place are brilliant. They know the area, they know what people want and they know how to provide it. This definitely changes the game in Festus.
Oh by the way... HaPpY BiRtHdAy Suzi!!!!

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*'Mr. Cellophane' is a song from the musical 'Chicago.' A lament  about being a plain, ordinary man that no one ever seems to notice.

Oriental Buffet

774 S. Truman Rd.
 Crystal City, Mo.

 Once Angel gets 'Chinese Food' in her head, the discussion is pretty much over. It's a craving of a strength like none other, much like the shaved ice she craved back when she was gestating. Also, it rarely gets objected to anyhow, we like us some good Chinese food, especially a buffet. We like the Oriental Buffet just fine. It's not the best in the world, or the country, the state or even the region, but it is closer than any other decent place. There is a change in the wind though, one that motivated us to go to OB as soon as possible.
A few months back Ryan's Steak House and Buffet abruptly shut its doors. A few weeks later there was an announcement that Hibachi Grill was going to build a buffet in Ryan's massive building. There are even banners out, flapping in the wind on the hill above Highway A. The old Ryan's location is less than a half mile from the Oriental Buffet.
There are a lot of  Hibachi Grills in the region, even one down in Springfield, the Queen City of the Ozarks. All Hibachi grills are pretty much exactly alike. It is not a franchise  though, it's more of a business model. Each one, though independently owned and operated, is almost identical to the others. First they are HUGE. They offer traditional Chinese buffet items, and sushi, and a Mongolian Barbecue area. The food there is pretty good and the variety is mind blowing. They are the big-box store version of the Chinese buffet.
We are a little worried about the smaller place, the OB. Will they be able to survive the new big Bertha literally in it's very shadow? I don't know. But we thought we'd go to OB now, just in case it got swallowed up.
The Chinese invented lots of things that other cultures have adopted as their own. Pasta, paper, gun powder, the wooden coffin, paper currency, the fire drill, to name a few. They did not invent the buffet.
You'll never guess who did.... go ahead, guess!
Annnnnd, you're wrong. The correct answer is 'Sweden'. The Swedish also invented ABBA. So they are plenty clever people, those pale and chilly Swedes. The word smorgasbord is Swedish in origin, and described an open table of food and adult beverages, a lot of adult beverages, popular starting in the 1600's. The rest of Europe picked up on the Swedish sensation, the smorgasbord, not ABBA, or 'side board' aka 'buffet' (a French word for the table on which the food and beverages were served)  in the 1800's as railroads started connecting all those little unimportant and snooty European countries and cities. Feeding travelers in this manner was much more efficient than seating them all, cooking for and then waiting on them individually.*
I've never been to a Swedish Buffet though, have you? I have had the little gravy covered meatballs they serve at Ikea, but not in buffet form. I'm not sure what would even be on a Swedish buffet, maybe those meatballs, several kinds of disgusting dried and salted or fermented fish, like their gravlax, and maybe some potato soup and lingonberry jam. Hmmm.  I think the American palette would largely prefer Chinese. Except for maybe my loyal fan Suzi. I think she swings toward more Nordic tastes.
So even though the Chinese did not invent the buffet, nor ABBA, they did perfect the former. Sure they had to fuss with it a little to suit the fickle American tastes, but they have done a fine job at that. What they did was to Americanize some of their own dishes. By that I mean they wrapped it in dough or batter and deep fried or pan fried nearly everything. You haven't noticed that? Silly, gullible Americans.
Chinese food, wontons, rangoons, egg rolls, dozens of different kinds of chicken and pork, (even their rice is fried) offered in an all-you-can-eat, heart clogging buffet, pretty much indistinguishable from carnival food.
But man, is it tasty! Just don't kid yourself that it's somehow healthier than a burger with fries, it's certainly not.
The Place:
A simple, clean and adequately sized place in a strip mall. It is decorated with the requisite jade objects and bright colors. The overhead music was too loud as well as awful. I'm not sure of the name for the genre. It started with 'Sealed With a Kiss' that terrible, dirge-like, un-killable and ubiquitous prom song from the early 70's. Followed by a female cover of Simon and Garfunkel's  'Scarborough Fair' ( 'Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.' ) and the Carpenter's 'Yesterday Once More' ("Every sha-la-la-la, Every wo-o-wo-o, still shines, Every shing-a-ling-a-ling, that they're startin' to sing's, so fine.")  Arrrrgh!
The only good thing possible about music like this was that back in High School it gave you a chance to thoroughly grope your date's soft and round parts during what was known as a 'slow-dance'. Slow dancing in high school is really just making out in public while clumsily swaying from foot to foot. If it were actually dancing we'd see it on DWTS, wouldn't we?
The more I think of it, pretty much all dancing is sexual, some of it, like the Tango, even overtly so. But if that's what it takes for a guy to be able to legally feel up a girl, then so be it. My general observation is that women really, really don't like touching, or being touched by men. That's been my experience anyhow. Which is sad really, because anyone who really knows me, knows that I'm a cuddler.
The Food:
It's a buffet. they offer scores, maybe hundreds of items, mostly breaded, dough wrapped and fried. Everyone's got their own favorites, I got mine.
We were escorted to a table, we ordered our drinks without even sitting down, then ran toward the lines. Usually I sample lots of things, I decided not to this night. I went straight to the known likes. Fried rice, fried noodles, three kinds of breaded fried chicken, (different spiciness levels)  rangoons, pan fried pepper steak and some 'butter shrimp' which were the only non-fried items on my plate.
Angel did pretty much the same, but just to be ornery, added some green things, broccoli and asparagus.(blech!) Adam filled his plate with sweet and sour chicken, breaded and deep fried chicken nuggets covered in a neon-red sauce.
We all made second runs, my next and final plate though only sported the seventh best dessert mash-up in the world, banana pudding and bananas covered in that mysterious, viscous red sauce found only at Chinese buffets.
I love Chinese food, even though little of the stuff I like is authentic Chinese. I've tried actual Chinese food, it's awful. Fish heads, tree bark and pickled pigs eyes, no thanks. Give me some of that carnival food. They even offer chicken on a stick. What could be more American than food on a stick?
Summary:
"Perfectly acceptable." I declared. Adam said he completely agreed. Angel added "Very filling"  which it is, because it's mostly breaded and fried, like funnel cake and corn dogs.
The price was a very reasonable thirty four dollars, not bad at all for all you can eat.
I have no idea how this perfectly adequate and nice little place will fare once the monster on the hill opens. I hope they continue to do okay, but my intuition says they will not. Hibachi Grill is a mega-plex of Chinese food. They offer more, if not necessarily better. They are very efficient, clean, inexpensive and well staffed. The little guys nearby may not stand a chance.
Oh, the tea. It was awful, it always is, weak, bland, tasteless. I'll give it a -3 on the PJTea scale



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* The author tried to contact a Swedish authority, Agnetha Faltskog, also know as the blonde chick from ABBA, for verification of this information. Unfortunately, she has yet to respond to the hundreds of calls and letters I've sent over the years.

Hibachi Supreme Grill & Buffet

8925 Watson Rd  

Webster Groves, MO 63126

Reviewing a buffet is kind of like judging a live music competition. Perfection is rare so you have to judge the overall performance. Regardless, some notes have to be spot-on, there’s a minimum standard.

In a Chinese buffet there must be decent starches, rice and noodles, and there must be more than one tasty chicken and seafood offering, as well as a well-prepared wrapped and fried item.

It’s not important that every offering satisfy completely, that’s the perfection that is simply beyond reasonable reach.

It also helps if there is a wide variety, as well as something for the kids besides ice cream and cookies.

A really good buffet is one that offers one or more stand-out dish. There are a lot of Chinese buffets out there; the winner often becomes the one that is closest to somewhere you want to be or the one that has something special worth the extra time or mileage.

The closest to our needs is in Festus. It’s pretty good. This one is in Webster Groves, Angel discovered it on her way to pick up/drop off a client dog.

As it turned out she needed to make just such a pickup in the area on Saturday, so we decided to give this newer place a try.

The Place:

A very large stand-alone on Watson Road. I never get out this way, but Angel does quite frequently. It’s not close to home.

The building is larger than most of the strip-mall buffets we frequent. It was built for a large flow of people. It was also built to please the eye. No industrial, generic furnishings. The chairs were all Asian-styled heavy wood, stained reddish. The table tops were all a swirly orange-sherbet, faux-marble look. The carpet was dark based and brightly patterned, more swirls.

Partitions separating the booths and tables were also heavy, carved, red stained wood with painted glass trim.

The entrance/foyer was large and nearly over-decorated. Large Asian items were set up museum-style. The ceilings were high and painted sky-blue, which made the space feel open to nature, a Zen-thing I suppose.

As with many buffets we were immediately shown our table and asked for drinks without even sitting down. Tea, sweet tea and Coke/Pepsi. (Coke)

There were more buffet islands than I’d ever seen in one place. Added to that there was the hibachi area, where you could load up a bowl with raw ingredients and hand it to a chef for grilling, Mongolian grill-style. There was also a sushi bar with more variety than I am accustomed to seeing at the places we frequent. The piped in music was Chinese-styled, though a bit modern sounding. I’m no expert, but the music, those perky Chinese banjo ( ruan or 阮 ) ballads* fit the place nicely.

The Food:

As is my custom, I loaded up my first plate with small portions of as many things as I thought I might like. There were a dozen or more kinds of chicken, rice, noodles, rangoons, eggrolls, shrimp in several styles, crawfish, something creamy looking in a clam shell, several soups.

The American food section was also very generous. Potatoes, mac and cheese, pizza, pulled pork and/or beef, fried chicken, fish, green beans, etc.

I started with various chickens and shrimps, a rangoon, a crawdad (whole) and some fried rice and some noodles. I also grabbed a steamed dumpling.  My small plate was full with about a dozen items.

Angel’s plate wasn’t too different, though she added more veggies and she’d grabbed one of the clam-shells. Adam was pretty straight-forward chicken and white rice. He doesn’t like fried rice because of all the vegetable bits it contains.

The rice bothered me a little, it didn’t look right. It had a distinct orange hue to it. It didn’t taste bad, or orange, but it was rather bland. The noodles were much better. The chickens were fine, none overly spicy. The best for me was the sesame version.

The bright red crawdad on my plate yielded better photo-ops than it did flavor. It wasn’t bad, but furnished  with only a fork, I had no good way to bust it open. Crawdads look like small lobsters but taste more like crab. Mine was slightly overcooked, a bit rubbery. Not worth the amount of work it took to get into it.

The dumpling (pot sticker) was not too bad, they hadn’t been too heavy-handed with the ginger.

Angel reported that the beef-broccoli was spicier than she was accustomed to, but that it was really quite good. I’m not a fan of broccoli so I once again took her at her word.

The clam-shell thing was surprisingly quite good. It was creamy and reminded me of a high-end spinach dip. If there was actual mollusk in it I couldn’t detect it. I’m not a fan of mollusks either.

Adam’s second trip was pretty much all dessert. There were a lot of options. Cakes, puddings, ice cream, lots of toppings.

Angel’s second included a stuffed shrimp, a trip to the sushi bar and a large slab of really fresh and perfectly ripe watermelon.

 One of Angel's selections was a peach-something-pastry. It was round like a small peach, but was actually layers of dough, varying in color. It had no actual taste. The white dough tasted just like the dark brown center, and that taste was not sweet, just light and dough-y.
My second plate included one Rangoon, a few more noodles and a couple of chunks of sesame chicken, along with the ubiquitous bananas with red sauce and some pretty good banana pudding.

Summary:

Dinner buffets cost $9.99 and drinks are $1.49, making this a pretty cheap dinner, $37.99 in total, especially as an all-you-can-eat place. None of the food was bad. The place appeared to be very clean and very well-staffed. The buffets never went empty or stale, emptied plates disappeared quickly. The décor and ambiance were better than we are accustomed to seeing for such inexpensive fare.

I have no idea what the deal was with the orange rice, but since the noodles were very good, it balanced out. Some of the chicken offerings were a bit bland, one referred to as Japan-style was rather dry, but some were quite good. There was nothing terrible or disgusting. Unfortunately there were no smash hits either.

If you live reasonably close to Webster Groves, this place should be on your must-try list. If you live further out, like thirty-something miles out like we do, well, there’s just not anything special enough to make that extra time and mileage worth it.

It was a pretty decent place, with a huge variety. Just nothing that much better than other places.

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* To be fair, the music was most likely from a gugin ( 古琴 ) rather than a ruan. A ruan is a round, four-stringed lute-like instrument, whereas the gugin is a seven stringed zither-like instrument. I just thought 'Chinese banjo' was funnier.

 

HuHot Mongolian Grill

12675 Olive Blvd

St. Louis (Creve Coeur)

http://www.huhot.com

I’ve been to Mongolian barbecue places before, not in a while. This was a spur of the moment choice, Doug and Rob invited me to join them. HuHot is actually a franchise, based in, obviously (sarcasm), Montana.

There’s a couple of dozen of these restaurants mostly in the middle of the U.S. Kentucky, Tennessee and Maryland? Nope. Springfield Mo? Yes.

I’ve probably been to this style of restaurant less than most of you, my loyal fans, but bear with me as I cover the basics for the novices.

The Place:

A standalone, large and colorful. Trademarked logos on the signage and doors/walls/windows. Inside, the upper walls are decorated by hand painted murals. Laura Blaker, a Missoula based artist travels to each new HuHot to paint its unique murals. In Creve Coeur, there is an imposing 20+ foot snaky, two legged dragon, yellow with red rings and eyes. The murals really are quite striking.

It’s a large place and pretty busy.  This Monday lunch saw it filled with office workers much like the three of us, but mostly more attractive. Rob and Doug had been there several times and knew the drill.

The lunch special is an all-you-can-eat stir-fry buffet. There are three buffet lines, one with raw meats and noodles, the next with fresh veggies, etc. and the last with a couple dozen vats of sauces.

We were shown a table, asked about drinks (water all around) and offered appetizers of Rangoons or egg rolls. Doug asked for three of the latter. He and Rob also asked for plain rice, which I thought was an unusual 'optional'(not part of the buffet) item, since rice is a staple and very cheap, costing about 1 yuan per ton (1 Yuan= around 15 U.S. cents).
We headed toward the lines.

The Food:

The meats were chopped and frozen. At first this bothered me, but I thought the better of it and went on. I chose mostly chicken and a little turkey. I added a plop or two of yakisoba noodles (there are three other kinds of noodles available see http://www.huhot.com/Menu/Create_a_Meal for a complete list of buffet items.) I went nuts at the veggies, peppers, lots of multicolored peppers, a few tomatoes and bean sprouts. I tried to build a taste profile in my head to make sure I didn’t mix contrasting flavors. My bowl was already spilling over when I got to the sauces. There’s a couple dozen choices, you just ladle on four or five scoops, mix or match. An experienced customer’s blend could potentially be quite elaborate. I kept it simple and mild, choosing the tame Samurai Teriyaki. I figured I could always turn up the volume later.

Rob and Doug had filled their bowls as well, as veterans of the place they didn’t need as much think time. We took our bowls up to the cooking station and handed them over. In the center was a seven foot round steel cooking contraption with a hole in the middle. Two or three cooks could easily fit around it. They squirt a little oil on the surface, like a griddle and plop your bowl right on it. I spend a lot of time behind a stove at home so watching the process right in front of my eyes was not as big a spectacle as it might be for some people.

In a couple of minutes of tossing and turning, the steaming piles were scooped onto plates and handed over.

At the pickup area there were vats/crocks of crunchies, chow mein noodles, glass noodles, some crushed nuts, etc. I added a few chow mein noodles. Our water and egg rolls were waiting for us at the table.

I took my first taste, decided it was indeed quite tame, and sprinkled on some soy sauce. By the time I sank my fork into the next bite I noticed fast-eating Doug, the star-nosed mole*. Even self-handicapped by using chopsticks, he was about half done with his. By the time I was halfway through mine, he’d already built a second helping and gone through the line. Rob debated a second plate, instead he took some of the white rice they’d ordered separately and stirred it into the remaining sauce and food chunks on his plate. Doug still finished ahead of me.

 I was very pleased with the meal. I had chosen smartly, except for the tomatoes, they’re better on a salad or pizza than in a stir fry. The sauce was splendid, a little sesame oil, soy sauce and sherry. I’ll probably go up a notch next time though there wasn’t anything at all wrong with what I had.
The little egg rolls were quite good, the sweet sauce they served with them was just right. 

Doug’s second round was based on recommendation cards, a thick deck of which can be found on every table. Tried and true combination suggestions. He chose one called ‘Vampire Killer’, a blend which I think included the chain's trademarked  “Kung Pao...Yow!” sauce. He likes it hot, really, really hot. 

Our water was refreshed often and emptied plates taken swiftly. When it came time to pony up, Doug grabbed the check and handed his card to the waiter. I objected loudly and violently, putting up quite the fuss. (Lie). Doug's such a nice guy. 

 Summary: 

I believe the lunch buffet cost eight bucks, though I can't be sure since I didn't pay my fair share.  The food was really good, and the selection was great. I've not been to very many Mongolian style buffets, so I can't really compare it to much else. I really just cannot say anything bad about the place at all. I'd said the meat being frozen was a little bothersome at first, until I considered the alternative, raw. I'd much rather stir fry small chunks of frozen meat than raw stuff that had been sitting out for a while. Besides, most of the meat I consume at home comes from our freezer. We're almost an empty nest, even bacon wouldn't stay good in the fridge for as long as it takes us to finish a pound. So I'm okay with the frozen meat. You?

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Star nosed mole

* Star-nosed mole. Considered the fastest eating mammal in the animal kingdom. “. . . taking as short as 120 milliseconds (average: 227 milliseconds) to identify and consume individual food items. Its brain decides in the ultra short time of 8 ms if a prey is comestible or not.” (Wikipedia)
I've called Doug this before, his family got a kick out of it, so now it sticks. It's not intended as an insult, just an observation that aside from the occasional prisoner, Doug eats faster than most other creatures I am aware of.