Mandarin Wok
Some time ago, a friend recommended a Chinese restaurant Mandarin Wok and added "This is the best Chinese place in town, believe me." I was skeptical of that claim. For me, Chinese cuisine was synonymous with kung pao tofu from Empire Chinese Restaurant. I decide to give this new place a try anyway. This place was fantastic. The variety of vegetarian dishes was mind-boggling and most of the dishes were tops. (Except for kung pao tofu, which was better at Empire's. The problem with Empire's was that they had only one vegetarian dishes, making frequent trips or a group outing difficult.)
At any rate, this place got intertwined in my life here as my crowd was crazy about this place and this was the preferred destination for any occasion. The place was run by an old Chinese couple and their daughter, Tina. Life went on normally till one day we heard that Tina and her parents were selling off the business and moving out. We were distraught. A new management took over. Tina and her parents signed a non-compete clause which insisted that they do not open another place with similar dishes in the vicinity. At any rate, Tina's parents wanted to retire and lead a quiet life.
We continued going to Mandarin Wok (under the new management) and told ourselves that we had no other go.
Till we found out that Tina's parents decided that they needed to get to work and had opened a new Chinese place. However, thanks in part to the non-compete clause, they could open the place only at Mahomet, a place 10 miles away. We found out about this new restaurant, thanks to a friend.
One fine day (yesterday), S, A and I decided to try out this new place. We hopped into S's car and off we drove to Mahomet. Tina recognized us and it was apparent she was very happy. She said that not many vegetarians frequented the place and they were out of eggplant (This is what brinjal is called in US.) and she could not offer eggplant in garlic sauce, a perennial favorite. As it turns out S does not like eggplant but to play the role of a good guest, she pretended to be disappointed. For the order, we asked Tina to just get us something good.
Tina got our food and with a flourish placed the eggplant dish and said that she did find some eggplant indeed. It was hilarious to see S's genuine disappointment now. But then Tina immediately followed it with other dishes which looked fabulous. At the end, Tina insisted, despite our vehement protests, that our dinner was on the house!
Good memories are made up of incidents like these! Only after the dinner there, did I realize how much I had missed the original Wok's food. The Wok of today serves good fare, alright, but not as good as the original's.
At any rate, this place got intertwined in my life here as my crowd was crazy about this place and this was the preferred destination for any occasion. The place was run by an old Chinese couple and their daughter, Tina. Life went on normally till one day we heard that Tina and her parents were selling off the business and moving out. We were distraught. A new management took over. Tina and her parents signed a non-compete clause which insisted that they do not open another place with similar dishes in the vicinity. At any rate, Tina's parents wanted to retire and lead a quiet life.
We continued going to Mandarin Wok (under the new management) and told ourselves that we had no other go.
Till we found out that Tina's parents decided that they needed to get to work and had opened a new Chinese place. However, thanks in part to the non-compete clause, they could open the place only at Mahomet, a place 10 miles away. We found out about this new restaurant, thanks to a friend.
One fine day (yesterday), S, A and I decided to try out this new place. We hopped into S's car and off we drove to Mahomet. Tina recognized us and it was apparent she was very happy. She said that not many vegetarians frequented the place and they were out of eggplant (This is what brinjal is called in US.) and she could not offer eggplant in garlic sauce, a perennial favorite. As it turns out S does not like eggplant but to play the role of a good guest, she pretended to be disappointed. For the order, we asked Tina to just get us something good.
Tina got our food and with a flourish placed the eggplant dish and said that she did find some eggplant indeed. It was hilarious to see S's genuine disappointment now. But then Tina immediately followed it with other dishes which looked fabulous. At the end, Tina insisted, despite our vehement protests, that our dinner was on the house!
Good memories are made up of incidents like these! Only after the dinner there, did I realize how much I had missed the original Wok's food. The Wok of today serves good fare, alright, but not as good as the original's.
posted by Niranjan at 4/28/2006 12:01:00 AM
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