The loneliest Chinese restaurant in town, Chen's Village sits in an inauspicious curve in a long, lonely road. How they survive, I have no idea, although I presume the weekday lunch crowd is decent, and they seemed to be making orders for delivery while we monopolized the play.
This wasn't done by filling it up, mind you. This was done by being there. Cause we were it. From the time we arrived til the time we left, there wasn't another customer. Oh, a woman came in wondering about taking over the whole place for an event, but she wasn't actually buying anything, so she's not a customer. And that was as we were paying the check.
So the place looks like a family style restaurant, with formica tables and padded back chairs, that just happened to acquire Chinese accents from someplace. Like your great aunt Mabel's place, who went to Chinatown when she was a kid and loved the look of it. That's about the way Chen's looked.
The menu was pretty extensive, and had offerings in both Chines and English, so they must have more authenticity that the decor suggests. My chow mein was pretty good, with good chicken. But that's not actually the purpose of this review.
Rather, I've got to talk about the drinks, and the bar. But there's not much to say. The bar was a counter, and three tables, hidden off to the side. Like the rest of the place, it was desolate and lonely. And the drinks were not so good. They were strong enough, I suppose, but they tasted a little off. Like perhaps the cranberry juice hadn't been called on to serve in some while, and was uncertain about what to taste like. It was drinkable, but that was about it.
Chen's Village, forgotten in the open, is best left alone where it is.
Posted by Jason at April 28, 2002 12:36 PM