mr chen's restaurant review

:) You have much skill in expressing yourself to be effective. :)

WTF?

Daily Numbers 6 5 4
Lotto Six # ' s 6 41 27 31 37 4

Ah-hah.

Do all fortunte cookies thrive on stereotypes like these, or are there PC fortune cookies, do you think? If there are, I bet they're organic, too. Why do we have to put such jibberish on the fortune? "You have much skill in..." No one speaks like that. Why not, "You are very good at___?" or "You do ____ exceptionally well?" And how the fuck is this even a fortune? This is a compliment. This does not pretell anything. And for chrissakes, what's with the fucking smiley faces on each end of the hackneyed English* that we stereotype all Asian-Americans speaking like?

"Woah," Reader says. "I think you're taking the whole fortune thing a little too literally. As a matter of fact, Merriam-Websters On-line Dictionary says that a fortune cookie is

Main Entry: fortune cookie
Function: noun
: a thin cookie folded to contain a slip of paper on which is printed a fortune, proverb, or humorous statement

Fine. But that still doesn't explain why we need to put the stupid phrase in a dialect of English that no one speaks, except in Charlie Chan movies and Yan Can Cook.

OK, maybe your sensibilities aren't offended yet. So you turn over your fortune and get the days "winning" lotto numbers? Or is this supposed to be the fortune telling part and I just never really understood these cookies fully before? Scary thought. But back to the lotto thing for a sec... Do they get a cut? Why are they promoting sales of lottery tickets? Don't they know that there are actual people out there who will believe this fortune shit and will probably go out and spend money they shouldn't be spending on the nights big pick six? [Note: these are probably the same people who think Asian-Americans really do speak in jibberish]

Needless to say, Mr. Chen's Organic Chinese already has one strike against it, and I haven't even gotten to the food yet. Of course I eat the fortune cookie first, don't you?

We got the General Tso's Bean Curd and "Singapore style angel hair rice noodle combination - Vegetarian." Which was quite the mouthful to order. Good thing I have much skill in expressing myself to be effective. We also had the steamed veggie dumplings and veggie springrolls. I dunno what it is about those little fucking things (yes I do, they're deep fried), but I just can't resist spring rolls. They were not part of the menu we had settled on but once I got on the phone and was in the heat of ordering, I broke down and tacked on the extra order of springrolls. This was Prez Day, and I was ordering takeout for me, Partner (heretoafter referred to as "P," or maybe just Pee) and our pal Steff (who you may know from Mindy's Blog).

The food arrived just in time, I think Pee and I were pretty famished. Steff got hungry once the food got there. (Yes, you need to know these things). The General Tso's had one of those little chile peppers next to it on the menu, indicating it was "very hot." Bullshit. It tasted like sweet and sour with one dried red chile thrown in. Boring. And on top of that, "Bean curd" turned out to be nothing more than fried tofu. What is weird about this--and we three had a good long chat trying to get to the bottom of it, to no avail I might add--is that they had bean curd and tofu both on the menu. Indicating to me anyways that they were somehow different. Maybe like texture wise or something. Sure, you're calling me and idiot and saying that tofu IS bean curd. I'll give you that, but why put both fucking synonyms on the menu? Why doesn't the menu just say General Tso's Tofu? This makes just zero sense when you see the menu, too, because it is right next to something with Tofu in the name? Were they going for variety? WTF?!?! Another strike against Mr. Chen's. No, make that two more strikes against because in all honesty I was really bummed out about the lack of kick and boring flavor and the really really REALLY rubbery-spungy not at all exciting bean curd/tofu. The Singapore style noodles were fine, and the veggies were good. I'd get that again, maybe. I have this thing where if I am getting a bunch of Chinese food to share I like to make sure we get stuff with both noodle dishes and rice dishes. 'Cuz I like variety, don't get me wrong, just not when I am trying to figure out what the hell is the difference between tofu and bean curd.

The steamed dumplings were a bona fide hit though. And by golly, them spring rolls were mighty good eatin'. But these things should be good, they are simple friggin' app's. Seriously.

At the end of the day, I just cannot endorse Mr Chen's to someone. Especially not when I live one block away from the best Szechuan in the District. Really, you must check out the ma la menu at the Great Wall Szechuan House. The MF'ing bomb. Goddaaammmm GodDAMM makes my mouth water just thinkin' about it.

Oddly enough, I've never been put off by their fortune cookies either.

*ok ok ok... I get it is probably not a good thing to deride a stereotypically racist manner of speaking by saying hackneyed English, which I think comes from making fun of the way people from Hackney spoke the Queen's English. Well as Val Kilmer said in Tombstone, my hypocracy knows no bounds.