| The Princess Garden is a blast from the past. |
My friends wanted to go to Princess Garden, one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in the metro, and to say that they weren't making a big deal out of the incoming "Year of the Rabbit" would be an understatement. And I think I liked it better that way.
Princess Garden is one of those restaurants that seems particularly dated. The current location, at 8906 Wornall, opened in 1981 and hasn't really been updated since. (The restaurant's first 10 years were in a much more modest location at 75th and Wornall, in the space now occupied by the China Town Super Buffet.)
I have friends who love the time-warp quality to Princess Garden, with its mint-green walls, gilded dragons, tufted booths and theatrical light fixtures bedecked with red tassels. It has one of the most extensive Chinese-American menu selections: 11 pages of dinner listings, not including the three-page collection of wines and exotic cocktails. Serious cocktails, by the way. The heading reads: "Strong: For Those Who Enjoy Drinking."
I've never thought the cuisine at Princess Garden was particularly outstanding, so I was surprised to see one of the fussiest food snobs in the city -- culinary consultant Bonnie Winston -- dining in the restaurant last night.
"What they do well," she says, "they do very well. But the best dishes here are the ones not on the menu."
Winston and her three dining companions apparently told the owners that they were there for Chinese New Year and sat down with their chopsticks at the ready. "They just keep bringing food," Winston told me after I had paid our bill and my group was walking out. "And all of it is delicious."
I didn't have that luxury: I was with a vegetarian college student and her mother, a woman who is not an adventurous eater by any stretch. We ordered off the menu. I have to say that our dinners were really, really terrific. My cholesterol count will suffer enormously for my decision to eat crispy orange duck -- which was crispy and outrageously fattening. And I loved the fact that the meals were still served on heavy porcelain plates topped with stainless-steel covers. You rarely see that anymore.
No, there were no red envelopes or any New Year fanfare at the end of the meal, just the bill and the usual cellophane-wrapped fortune cookies. I'm hoping that my fortune won't be an omen for the rest of the Year of the Rabbit: "You will work very hard all year," the printed slip informed me, "and be very tired."
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