Thursday, August 13, 2009
Food Fight Food Fight: Asian Takeout
Posted by Nicki Wood on Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 11:18 AM
The Harris Theater Asian Bar increased by 30 percent our nearby options for Asian food.
Our default has been the Chinese Kitchen Formerly Known as Christina's on Richard Jones Road in Green Hills. Christina apparently moved on, but the new owner's food is just as good, abundant, and inexpensive at about $9 for all your plate can hold and as many plates as you care to fill. The pork (or is that beef?) and green beans, beef broccoli, pork in sauce, fried chicken in sauce, soups, lo mein in brown sauce and more are prepared in small batches so they're hot and fresh. True, the former 7-11 has no atmosphere whatsoever, and the menu never changes. Those may explain the paltry handful of guests. A lot of people get takeout.
Whole Foods' hot bar has its Asian temptations, too, in Korean barbecue ribs, chicken teriyaki, lo main, rice, and usually something vegetarian involving eggplant or tofu. The variety is nice, and you can augment your Asian food with a bit of salad or cherry dumptruck. Big ups. On the other hand, the $8.99/pound price tag means you can easily get to the checkout with a lunch that cleans out the wallet at $23 for two people.
Fellow Biteser Chris Chamberlain was amped by the Harris Theater's hot Asian bar, and for good reason. It offers dining next to the cart-o-lator, an escalator for shopping carts that's a never-ending source of amusement and quip-fodder. The bar has the usual Chinese like sesame chicken, ginger pork (nice flavor but really dry, on two visits), chicken teriyaki, General Tso's chicken (as best I can tell), eggrolls, shumai fried like wontons, lo mein, vegetable fried rice and more. Can't beat the $5.99/pound price for dinner and a show.
So will it be the atmosphere and opportunity to shop? The amenities and dessert? For me, of all the reasons to choose a restaurant, nothing trumps flavor and consistent high quality. It's Christina's for Asian hot bar.
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N.B. The Asian Bar at the Theater Teeter closes at 8:00 on weeknights, but they stop restocking it well before then. In my experience, the pickings at 7:45 are slim and fairly mummified be heat lamps.
Just don't procrastinate. (Like I always do.)
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Has anyone been to Chinatown in Green Hills on Hillsboro Pike? That place is freaking sweet, well-priced and the staff is ridiculously nice.
A place opened up in Madison a few months ago, sort of right across from McDonald's called China Wok. It's not going to make anyone think they've been transported to San Francisco anytime soon but it's straightforward American Chinerse and clean and they make it all to order with what seems like a high proportion of fresh ingredients...water chestnuts and that weird baby corn aside. It's also crazy cheap.
Oh and the guy who runs the counter is funny. While the credit card machine takes its sweet time processing, he looks at you and winks and says HE IS BEING LAZY! And he says it every time, so it gets funnier.
