Unfortunately, the food has always been pretty much the same quality. If you have eaten at any other Chinese restaurant in WNC or probably, anywhere, then you will be familiar with the menu and the standard buffet. The food quality is just OK. Not anything to write home about. Or sing praises about. Nor does it instill a desire to return any time soon.
It is located close the square in Bryson City. Certainly within walking distance to the town and after you have eaten, you may want to take a little walk like we did.
We certainly had enough time to walk to one end of the town and back as we were finished eating that quickly. There is nothing to make you linger over your dinner, or go get dessert.
The restaurant is decorated with your standard Buddha, oversized fish tank, hanging pagoda lights, and gold colored bric a brac on the walls.
The restaurant is large, but is usually not full except sometimes around lunch when folks are in a hurry and on a time limit for lunch. They have the buffet at lunch too.
The buffet is quite extensive in terms of size. There are usually 3 soups: Wonton, Egg Drop, and Hot and Sour. Also pretty standard is fried rice, steamed rice, rice noodles and thick noodles. Then you have your unexciting Steamed Green Beans, General Tso's Chicken, Beef with Broccoli, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Hot and Spicy Chicken, etc. along with Fried Crabmeat Wontons, Chicken on a Stick, Spring rolls and Egg rolls. They also serve some pretty Un-Chinese items like Cheese Sticks, Mini Apple Fried Pies, Cookies. On the dessert line were items like Jello, some kind of pudding, Bread Pudding, Oranges. They used to offer sushi on their buffet, but it was not on it tonight.
I don't really care for these kind of restaurants, as I never know how long the food has been sitting. Judging from the looks of some of the items, it had been a loooong time, even though it was early in the evening. I did not see anyone come out and refill or refreshen any items while we were there. Some of the items were dried up, had skim over them or just looked really old.
I only ate a couple of items. The wonton soup was fairly OK, but how can you mess that up? The tea was on the McDonald's kind of sweet side. Way too sweet for southern tea. I always order half and half so I can drink it. Plus I get 3 lemons to cut it even more.
Greg was missing tonite as he is gone to Ohio. Our dynamics always change when it's just us women. Pam had two questions for us tonite.
One was "If we could be a color, what would it be and why?" The second was "If we could be any kind of weather, what would it be and why?"
The responses to the questions are as follows:
Lisa - She would be Sage Green. The reason being is that color for her is soothing, healing, easy on the eyes, the color of the Smoky Mountains (among other shades of green), it is natural. In regards to weather, she would be a hard rain. Not a torrential or tumultuous pounding, destructive rain, but a steady, hard, hear it beating on a tin roof kind. The kind you can sleep to. Again, because it is healing, nourishing, and to her, soothing.
Susan - She would be either Red or Purple. A true red, not a pinky red, or brownish red, or burgundy red, or orangy red. But a true Red. The Purple would be a deep, thick, buttery Purple. Not Lilac, or anything pastel, or a pinky purple. But a true purple. The reason being because she wants to POP, be noticed, not be forgotten, let other colors know she has arrived and is making a statement. The weather she would be would be (contrary to others thinking) a steady, slow early Spring rain. Just that kind of rain that lets you know Spring has arrived, makes everything pop with green, makes the flowers start to sprout and makes folks say "Oh Thank God! Spring is here! Winter is over. The kind of rain that you can hear and makes you want to sit on the front porch and watch/listen to as it heralds the ending of winter.
Pam - If she could be color, she would be Blue. The true ocean blue when the sun shines on it and makes you think you can see into the depths. That deep gorgeous blue that just screams "BEACH", and makes you want to go jump in it. Her reason being is that she wants to be beautiful, looked at, desired, and be noticed.
If she could be any kind of weather, it would be one of those fabulous Summer days around 75 degrees. Not to hot, not too cold. Definitely shorts weather. The kind of day that has a true blue sky ( not Duke blue, not Tarheel blue), huge, cotton candy clouds that seem to just float across the sky like balls of cotton rolling along as their being blown by the wind. The kind if summer day that makes you throw back your head and thank God you live in the South where days like that are to be absorbed like nourishment to the soul.
After our short meal, we walked the length of town, looked in the store windows, and read the realty ads while lamenting the destruction of our beautiful mountains by outsiders who's goal is to make as much money as possible at the demise of our environment. Its really too bad stewardship is not part of their goal. We also got a kick out of one realty office who is attempting capitalize on the Cherokee culture by naming his business "My Home" in Cherokee. We did start laughing hysterically while mimicking the pronunciation of the business, which veered of into a short rendition of Nell speak linguistics. We do amuse ourselves to no end.
We made it back to our cars and called it a night.
Next week we will be at Cork and Bean or Cork and Barrel or Crate and Bean or Crate and Barrel, whichever one you call it and can remember. Myself.. I can never remember that name of that place so just call it some version of the above. It is located on the square and is one of our newest restaurants. Their specialty is crepes. Come join us there on July 19th at 6:30. See you there...
on a side note.. I just reread what I wrote and noticed I spelled Yummy wrong. The restaurant is actually Yummi, which an I not a Y. Oh well.
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