Friday, September 5, 2008

Connecting With Dinner

We were really surprised today when we walked down Broadway between Montrose and Sunnyside and saw a brand new Chinese restaurant, The Chinese Connection. We peeked in the door and it appears to be open for business and looks clean and nice. Anyone want to do our first review of this place? We wish this new venture the best of luck.

9 comments:

  1. This is a tough neighborhood to do Asian food because the competition is so great! Good luck!

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  2. We agree Uptownr, but there aren't alot of options when it comes to food near Broadway and Montrose, at least Chinese food.

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  3. Just got a flyer on my porch for this new joint.

    "We have a great pride in the High Quality of our entire menu and the Customer Service that we provide to our valuable patrons.
    We will be glad to serve you,

    We appreciate your business in advance!"

    They also spell Chinese "Chines" at one point. Desserts as "deserts" and Chop Suey as "Chope Suey".

    I have a theory on ethnic takeout. The more misspellings or improper grammar in the menu the better the food. This place should be good.

    There are a few Asian takeout places within a few blocks of Montrose and Broadway. We don't lack for Asian takeout. I welcome the new place.

    I'll try to scan their menu and post it. They also only use vegetable oil.

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  4. Ordered from them last night.. About par.. Mongolian beef was OK, kung pao chicken was watered down.. Egg rolls were really fried, and yet somehow soggy. Pot stickers were decent. My wife did not like the garlic shrimp at all. Hopefully they're just working out the kinks.

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  5. I was once listening to an interview with John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John's. When they opened their first pizza place it was in an area totally saturated with other pizza places, and to an outsider it probably seemed like they were doomed to fail with so much competition. But a friend (or mentor? or great uncle?) told him: "There's no room for another pizza place -- But, there's always room for a good pizza place.

    Always liked that...

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  6. I ate there today. It's mostly a takeout and delivery place, not really an eat-in. There's a counter with three or four stools, but no booths or tables.

    Food was great! Good prices and (the benchmark of good Asian restaurants for me) really tasty crab rangoon.

    Service was a little wacky. The counter guy had problems with understanding what we wanted from the menu. The cooks in the back did better taking our order than he did. You could really tell they just opened for business on Thursday. Typical new restaurant stuff, totally forgivable.

    I had a complicated order, and they got it spot-on. After the debacle of ordering, I was pleasantly surprised.

    I'd definitely eat their food again, but I'm more apt to have it delivered or pick it up. Gazing out the window at the foot traffic on Broadway between The Spot and Tom Seay/Salvation Army was ... enlightening. And pretty entertaining. ;-)

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  7. Truman Square Neighbor, consider it dinner with a free floor show. Free reality TV at it's best. Just duck at any sound resembling bullets, it just may be.

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  8. It seems to me that most, if not all, of the new businesses that open in Uptown are restaurants. Still no retail to speak of.

    Am I just imagining it? Can anyone think of a new storefront opening that hasn't been a restaurant?

    The only one I can think of is the architects opening next to Family Dollar on Broadway a year or so ago, and while they did take away an empty storefront, they were already an existing business in the Bridgeview Bank Building.

    Oh, yeah, and B-of-A moving into the beautifully done rehab on Broadway and Lawrence.

    Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

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