As I make my way through the assortment of park-named burbs in Illinois, I’ve come across some very wrong places to purchase take-out. Happiness Chinese Restaurant (6222 Roosevelt Rd., Oak Park, IL) is one of those soul-sucking vacuums that steals upon you and extracts any cravings you might have for Chinese food in the future. In it’s wake, it leaves the lingering scent of treacherous conspiracies. I’m serious – I still can’t get the smell of their food out of my hair. I didn’t even eat there! A gentleman of Latin origin, who just so happened to have giant snot blobs in each nostril, delivered it to my condo. What did I get myself into?
I ordered egg rolls. They tasted like cabbage, pork and cinnamon toast. Someone was making empanadas in the Happiness fryer that I day, and that is a non-debatable fact. I don’t know why a Chinese place is making deep fried dough with cinnamon, but nobody wants an egg roll that tastes like the way potpourri smells. Nobody.
I moved on to my hot and sour soup. Hmmm… There’s that fried cinnamon flavor again and what else? Oh, I know. It was burnt. I got whatever was scraped out of the soup pot at the end of someone’s shift. I don’t get it - I was very pleasant on the phone and pre-paid by debit card. Serving burnt soup is worse than farting at someone.
The General Tso’s chicken and moo shoo beef were also distinctively cinnamonyish. Every time I bit into sticky broccoli tree, I couldn’t help but think of Chi-Chi’s fried ice cream. Not a sensation I’m looking for in a vegetable. Two bites of each entrée and I was out. I will have no more of this Happiness trickery in my mouth!
The worst part is, the leftovers of Happiness are still in my fridge. As a habit, I pack up leftovers for lunches. That means I have nearly-full containers of un-Happiness looking back at me whenever I fetch coffee creamer or an olive. If I touch the boxes, I might turn into what they are. The best I can do is buy a Hazmat suit when the wind chill advisory in Chicago is over, and walk the boxes to the trash chute via BBQ tongs. Pray for good weather.
Read Parky’s: Where Hot Dogs Go To Die for more bad food reviews.
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7 comments:
Mojo, there's a Chinese Restaurant less than a mile from my place and in the five years I've live here, I haven't ever walked in because I fear an eating experience such as you describe. There's just something about the look of the place that makes me thing that.
It's a wonder you got into and out of Oak Park alive and that is the only smell in your hair! It is one of the few places I have seen in Chi-Town and was so happy to get home to Orlando FL. That was the 70's. My friend was going to school there and his wife worked at admitting in the ER. Talk about gore, and not Al....
Hey, did you go look at my post in OTB about coming soon? I think that would make a great post this week using that picture. I can't link it here, as I found it on a passworded forum and put it on a passworded forum. Not sure of the origin either.
It's a must see.
Typo! That should be "think" that. I should go to bed now.
Mini it's ok, more than once I did "thing that" and it wasn't unpleasant! Just one of those "things".
:@)
Silly Mojopo accidentally orders from the breakfast menu. Forgets maple syrup duck sauce.
Today my lunch came from a seedy bar on Magazine St. where they serve "cubanos", a sandwich that is flesh from a dead animal smoked and piled high on french peoples' bread, with a slice of solidified juices from an animal's mammory melted, with pickles and celantro. The sammich is "pressed". Salty, greasy goodness! Would have had rum in coffee but it was after 10 a.m. when the rum rush in New Orleans ends.
Nothing tasted of cinnamon.
When I was a kid growing up in Tampa, FL (1950s), there were Cuban Cafes' and Restaurants on ever corner of a section call Ybor City. I lived on them when someone would buy me one. I used to work the family drug store at age 10 just so I could get one of those sandwiches for lunch! Worth a days work at that age!
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