Whenever I try a new place, I always go with what should be easy, sure things.
For example, if Im trying a new pizza place, I get cheese. If its mexican, tacos or a chicken burrito. New pub? Gimme the burger.
If the place passes the Simple test, Ill go back.
This brings me to Wing Wong, the Chinese place up on Rt 9 next to Loonar tattoo.
Inside, it looks like your typical chinese takeout dump. Formica tables, lots of red, packets of soy and duck sauce galore. Seen one, you’ve seen’m all. I think they use the same decorator for every single chinese takeout place in western mass.
So, I ordered chicken lo mein, chicken fingers and wonton soup. Easy. Simple. A typical fat, lazy american order. Nothing fancy. Something that they should be able to make in three seconds and be amazing.
It pretty much sucked. I don’t know if it’s the simplicity that killed it or if the place just plain old sucks. I mean, maybe they get this kind of order all the time, and are sick of making it so they just douche the noodles in liquid smoke and call it lo mein, then pour a couple pounds of salt into some boiling water with some grisly thin pork slices and scallions for wonton soup. The chicken in the lo mein was drier than a senior citizen’s third date, and had some very odd very hard, yet chewy bits in it. I like to think that those bits were somehow connected to a chicken at one time, but I sure didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about it, or examining the evidence. I just closed my eyes and thought of England.
The wontons that were being tortured in the brine were possibley made from the same mystery substance as the “chicken” in my lo mein, but were mercifully shrouded in acres of paste. It was most likey wonton skins back in the day, but had been sitting in the…water…for so long that they devolved into their original species of flour and water. People like to make fun of the kids in their elementary school classes who ate paste, but I paid 3 dollars to do that very thing last night. And Ive graduated college! True, it was only three dollars, what should I expect for three dollars, but when you go to work, tell your boss that for the next 20 minutes, youre doing shit for work, because seriously, its only three dollars.
The chicken fingers were chicken fingery. They contained chicken, thank god. They were golden brown, greasy and tasted like chicken fingers. Nothing spectacular, but not bad. Id get them again in a pinch.
The best chicken fingers in town for my money however, are from that sketchy looking place on King St. called China Palace, or Golden China, or Lunch $3.95… or something. I’ll have to look that up later. But its right near Shelburn Falls Coffee Roasters, which, if you want to talk about someplace NOT to go, there’s your hands down winner for coffee shops. Piss in a cup, then water it down and flavour it with hazelnut and you get the basic taste. But youd have to let it sit for a couple hours first. It cant be fresh. I think that’s in the employee handbook.
And lets be clear about something here. When Im talking about how bad a place’s food or coffee…or ANYthing is, Im not talking about the employees. If the employees are assholes Ill say so. It’s the product that I’ll complain about usually.
The people at Wing Wing are wicked nice. They were pleasant as all hell, polite, and the kid behind the counter was singing along with John Mayer on the radio. And another thing, I might go back there. I cant judge a place based on my very first experience when people have told me that its good. I went to Wing Wong because friends have said that its decent. I may have gone on a bad day, or they my have been getting close to closing…something. But it wasn’t bad enough to kill it forever for me. The chicken figners were decent. That makes me think that they have other decent food too. It’s just that my food that night sucked. Plain and simple. I wont get the same thing next time I go back, but if whatever I get next time is bad, Ill never go back, and I’ll tell everyone I know not to go there. There’s no excuse for it twice.
Shelburn Falls Coffee Roasters, on the other hand, Ive swilled plenty of that stuff to know I don’t like it. At all. And I recommend to everyone, please, do youself a favour and drink puddle water if youre craving to torture yourself under the pretense of coffee. At the time, I had no choice. I lived in Easthampton and it was either that or Dunkin Donuts.
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