Chinese Inn

Claire

Our blog was inspired by our visit to Chinese Inn, the white-facaded neon-illuminated Chinese place you've probably seen surrounded by car dealerships on Airline Highway near Women's Hospital. Our delightful meal at the sparsely populated restaurant made us want to tell all our friends how delicious it was, and then we thought it might be fun to spread the word a little further and venture into the blogging universe in the process. Since neither of us know anything about setting up a blog and at least one of us (me) is stubbornly averse to reading instructions, this has so far proven more of a challenge than anticipated; however, in the interests of justly spreading the word about our awesome dinner at Chinese Inn, soldier on we will.

I usually don't eat a lot of Chinese food. When I was a kid it was one of my favorite treats- the sweet and sour pork, the sweet and sour chicken balls, the gluey red sweet and sour sauce- but since I started having trouble eating meat in my early 20's my enthusiasm has waned. One of the things that has made me more excited about Chinese restaurants since then is the presence of friend bean curd on the menu, which can (at least 8 years into my vegetarianism) satisfy my craving for fried food vaguely resembling meat. The trouble is, many places don't sell it or sell it in a plain vegetable-based gravy, and that's not something I find terribly interesting. But Chinese Inn won points from me immediately by featuring not one but two kinds of bean curd- a plainer option (I can't remember what it was actually called) and then Szechuan bean curd, which the waitress described as "spicy". Well, I like my food to have a little kick to it, but I'm also a wimp, so I asked for "mild spicy".

I probably could have gone with "medium spicy", but still, this bean curd ranked very high on my delicious-bean-curd-I-have-known-ladder. Slighly crisp on the outside and firm (never weak or, worse, mushy, the kiss of death to me regarding any tofu dishes) on the inside, the thinly-sliced, wide-based squares of bean curd were covered with a light-tasting, slightly sweet, very, very mildly spicy Szechzuan sauce and surrounded by mixed vegetables (shown in the picture below). I got a meal deal for $11:50 (approx) which included a hearty and flavorful fried rice (this is not actually vegetarian- they offer a simple white rice, too), a simple yet soothing savory vegetable soup with cabbage, carrot, broccoli, and mushrooms, and a homemade eggroll. The eggroll was neither excessively greasy nor dry and was filled with fresh-tasting cabbage, carrot and other vegetables. It was served with plum sauce and spicy mustard and was everything I wanted an eggroll to be. In fact, I'm craving another already.

Rion

When I suggested we try the Chinese Inn I thought it would be a decent sit down Chinese meal. I was pleasantly surprised to get a homemade, well prepared and seasoned dinner. I was craving hot and sour soup which I found just right, not too much mushroom, a good base and the little bamboo shoots that add good crunch. I found the homemade egg roll delicious as well even though I usually prefer flakier egg rolls. For my entree I had mongolian beef which I often find to be a huge portion of mid-grade beef with a bland gravy and tons of onions and rice. This was a responsible, but filling portion of well seasoned (I asked for it very spicy), beef with onions and bell peppers in a dark gravy with a firm and oily (the good kind of oily) fried rice with chicken and maybe pork too. I often find Chinese food boring and cannot say that for the Chinese Inn.

Below: the bean curd (left) and the beef (right) with rice, being outstanding.