Egg Foo Blechhhh - OR - Thoughts On The Totally Janky Chinese Food Restaurant By My Job
In case I haven’t made this clear in the past, I work at a giant hospital complex. The complex employs some 10,000 workers, most of whom swarm the local area at lunchtime, devouring any number of fanciful things from the myriad restaurants which sprout to cater to our ravenous needs. Immediately next to my workplace is a Chinese food restaurant, and though it’s closer than any of the other restaurants, NOBODY evereverever eats there.
They run specials and have a liquor license (a happy anomaly in Pennsylvania). They have a huge, cheap buffet and awesomely cheesy decorations. There’s always a place to sit, and the wait staff is nice. But not a single, sane soul ever crosses the evil threshold. This lack of customer support is due to one (or in my case, ALL) of the following:
1.) The restaurant has no windows. None.
Just one door that looks like a portal to a moldy dimension.
You feel like you’re eating in a really red, noodley mausoleum. If they had a few waitresses that looked like the Cryptkeeper, they'd edge into creepy and almost be cool, but as things stand it's just claustrophobic.
2.) Their food is amazingly bad. Though I'm pretty sure someone's going out of their way to make food this awful, I have no hard evidence to back it up.
3.) The outside of the building smells. There's no way I can adequately describe this buildings sheer, unmitigated funk. I could try a metaphor, but I honestly can't think of anything that indicates sufficient foulness. I have NEVER smelled anything like this building. It’s heinous. It’s monstrous, odious, horrendous and any other word which implies horrible funkiness that ends in ‘ous’.
How do restaurants like this stay in business? Do they own the property? I can’t imagine that enough first-time suckers drift through the doors to pay the rent. Is it appropriate for me to ask a buisiness owner to WASH his bulding (with soap, please), so that I can enjoy my lunch elsewhere? Is there a health department for the outside of buidings?
Right now, if I want to walk anyplace else to eat, I have to walk past the restaurant, effectively killing my desire for lunch, and my will to live.
Which sucks.
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Random Fruit Fact: The Saturn Peach
"Developed from a variety of peach native to China but which did not have the hardiness to grow in New Jersey, doughnut peaches are flat, freestone peaches (which means the fruit does not cling to the pit)..."
I wish the building funk didn't cling... Learn more about the saturn peach, here.
Posted by Spurious Nurse at 7/13/2005 09:20:00 PM
13 Comments
You make me laugh.
That is all.
I would make it a point to walk by everyday! My ass would be tiny, but still quite yummy, due to losing my appetite. It would be greatness!
Oh wow! Plum, I have got to get a picture of this Chinese food place not far from my job... the outside looks similar to the picture, and I don't think there are any windows there either -- although, I must say, they have some kick ass food there. Very good.
Chinese buffets as a whole give me pause for thought.
My guess is that its a front for some black market opperation... or a hangout for a secret club. or hookers? (its kinda like a german bakery we have here in my town. but unlike your mysterious chinese food mold palace, it had tasty treats...but is closed all the time! )
Wait. Did someone say doughnut?
You know, I think Squirll has a point. If there's illegal business being conducted there it's the perfect setup. There are no windows for people to peek in. The outside stinks. Even if people could make it past the smell, who would eat the food? Hhhmmm, illicit activities must be paying the rent.
I only like chinese joints that have an open kitchen area, when I can SEE them chop, dice, slice and prepare my food, thereby assured it has not come from some electrically heated bacteria breeding buffet holding unit. I always think buf-fette when I type or read that word- no "bou-fay", but buffETTE! No buffets for me - #1 - I don't trust them, #2 - juhst don't trust them and #3...ya get mah drift.
Unless someone's paying a fortune for a high profile buffet gig, I won't go there.
oh! and I saw my very first saturn peach this past Monday!!! at a glance, I thought they'd been flattened
Chinese buffets (pronounced buff-ay) are great, at least here--we usually check out the joint before we stay to eat though. None of the places we go SMELL bad...one looks kinda shoddy though...
I laughed and cringed at your description--maybe they make the kind of food Dooce was talking about--guinea pigs and puppies....
I think they have to be a front for something illicit--some underground "massage" parlour or something...
That is just totally nasty
Oooh! I remember that place! I used to walk by there anytime I had to go to the IRB office when I worked at Montefiore. Yeah, that's not a smell you can explain. . .
Ewwww. That. Is. All.
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