My mom and I stopped in for a quick lunch at Chao Zhou Restaurant Chao Zhou Restaurant, where they are known for very simple home-style food. It’s that place with the big red bowl on top of the building, where you’ll see piles of people, even at 2am in the morning.
We started with the pig intestines which are flavorful and chewy if you can get over the not so visually appealing part. I grew up with this stuff so it doesn’t bother me but Lon didn’t even like seeing the pictures.
As with lots of Chinese places, they offer a long list of lunch specials over rice. I decided on one of my childhood favorites, Preserved Mustard Greens with Squid (over rice). This plate didn’t meet my childhood memories though. While the squid was nicely cooked, the mustard greens weren’t pickled enough and that’s where most of the flavor for this dish comes from.
We also tried a Curried Chow Fun, which looked great: roast pork, eggs, shrimp, clams, lots of good stuff, but it was kind of bland. The noodles were fresh and chewy but it really needed some seasoning.
I lucked out with something better, their XO sauce (provided on each table). This was the best thing at their restaurant, a very fragrant spiced oil (My mom tells me this stuff is made with meat too.)
Aside from the XO sauce, everything else was average, maybe even a little below. The suprising part is that this place is a few dollars more expensive than their compeitors. I’m confused. Why is this place so packed? Does everyone go just to eat this sauce? I guess it did make the boring noodles into something quite yummy. I’m still not going back though, until they jar and sell the XO sauce to go.
The Chow Fun looks really good. The intestines don’t.
Asianmommy, you didn’t eat that stuff as a kid?