A Sort of Interesting Chinese Dining Experience

Last night I was in the mood for some Chinese food. Unfortunately there are not too many good Chinese restaurants in our area - we've tried a few - but we decided to try another one that we had passed on the road before. 

We drove up and saw that the place actually looked kind of nice, and wondered for a second if we were dressed properly since we were just in jeans and long-sleeved shirts. But then we saw some people come out who were dressed pretty casually and figured we were fine. We got inside and realized we were the only Asian people in there who weren't staff members. (It is not uncommon for us to be the only Asians in the entire restaurant when we go out to eat near our home.) There were a lot of people waiting, but thankfully we got a table after just 5 or 10 minutes.

When we sat down, there were already plates and forks out, but the waiter also put two sets of chopsticks down. Ben looked around and noticed that no one else seemed to have gotten chopsticks. Hmm... He also looked back toward the front desk and noticed there was a large American flag hanging from a wall, maybe about 6 feet wide by 4 feet high. Not something that we've seen in many Chinese restaurants before.

We looked at the menu and saw "Peking Ravioli" as one of the appetizers. What is that? We decided to order it. Then the waitress came to take our order:

Waitress: "Are you ready to order?"

Ben: "Yes, what is the Peking Ravioli?"

Waitress: (writing) "One order of Peking Ravioli..."

Ben: "No, what is it?"

Waitress: "Peking Ravioli."

Ben: "Um...no, what's IN it?"

Waitress: "Pork."

Ben: "So, is it like dumplings?"

Waitress: "Dumplings."

Ben: "Uh...OK, yeah, we'll take one order."

I didn't bring my camera with me, so I don't have an actual photo of what we got, but here's something that's representative:

I guess Peking Ravioli = potstickers? Oh, well, they were still tasty. We also got long green beans with minced pork, and beef chow fun (aka ho fun - one of my all-time favorites). Quite greasy, but isn't that what most Chinese food is like? It was still very good, and we had plenty left to eat for dinner today. And the bill was pretty inexpensive.

So not a bad option to return to, and I'd say definitely one of the better ones among the Chinese food options around here. There are good places downtown, but that's far away, and we don't have the luxury (as much as we did in Houston) of joining in on large family gatherings where we can eat big 9-course meals with a variety of dishes. Seafood soup, beef with gai lan, crispy-skin chicken with shrimp chips, snow pea leaves, lobster, fried rice, steamed fish, seafood "bird's nest" thing, sweet tapioca soup (or a trip to a boba place afterward)...all wonderful blessings from the Lord. :) Somebody please invite us to your large Chinese banquet!