Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Review: Union Chinese Restaurant



The first thing we noticed about this place after driving past it a dozen times was that it has been there for a long time. You're really not coming here for the fantabulous food. It's half about the food and half about atmosphere.

We walked into the restaurant around 5:30pm and the place was empty. Yeah, not a good sign but we were hungry so we stayed. We decided to get the 2 person dinner which includes egg rolls, choice of soup (we got won ton), rice and two entrees.

As we waited for our eggrolls and soup, an Indian customer walked in to order take-out (I figure that's how this place survives rather than dine-in customers). She ordered a dish that has pork in it and instead of the waiter just putting her order in, he said "This dish has pork in it, do you want to substitute it for another kind of meat?" The customer was a little taken back as was I. A restaurant that actually pays attention to that level of detail is good in my book. She ended up substituting chicken for the meat. Sweet!

So after all that took place, the waitress brought over our eggrolls which were cliche in with that bright red, probably not natural sauce. I loved it and I don't know why. The soup was pretty good too albeit the won tons tasted more like potstickers but yet again, I didn't mind. On a side note, the waitress did put more stuff in Justyn's bowl than in mine which was funny. It was almost like she was telling me I needed to go on a diet or something. She also put all the carrots in his bowl rather than in mine. I hate carrots so that was a nice touch intentional or not.





The two entrees and rice came soon after that and we dove in. Unfortunately the Mongolian Beef had carrots and the Almond Chicken had water chestnuts which Justyn doesn't like, but we still devoured almost all of it.





I really can't put my finger on it, but this place has a sort of charm to it. I had a really good experience here. I went in knowing that this place wasn't going to be a great place to eat, and maybe that's why I was so impressed.

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