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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