China Star
China Star is a Chinese restaurant located off Cox Road, near the Henrico water tower, south of West Broad Street in Richmond’s far west end.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve eaten at this restaurant. Correction. What used to be this restaurant. This is the former home of the venerable Imperial Wok which I used to enjoy. China Star was the replacement. And I’ve now been here three times over the past three years.
The first time I went, the food was awful. It was overly Americanized, too sweet, and was plain bad. A good reason not to return, eh?
Then, I returned, because a Chinese friend of mine said “You ought to go!” She liked it… she reported it was authentic. I did go back, and enjoyed some delicious eggplant in garlic sauce. Until, that is, I found a hair in my rice. I wrote China Star off my list, once again.
So, after 1.5 years, I decided to return. My friend keeps going, and swears by their so-called “Chinese menu.” Some Chinese restaurants maintain a secret menu written in Chinese that offers native Chinese some home-grown dishes that are not often appreciated by Western visitors.
Sure enough, there are three menus. The first is an American-Chinese menu. Old favorites. Off this menu I ordered their fried dumplings. They were tasty.
Next came the Chinese menu that is also translated into English. These are still okay for me to tolerate… here I had a second appetizer: leek roll, and my entrée, spicy shredded pork in garlic sauce. The entrée lacked salt, and over did sweet a bit, but with one small adjustment, it made for a tasty dish. The leek roll was new, and delicious. I preferred the dumplings, truth be told, but everything was good. Rice was served in a bowl alongside another entrée, spicy squid.
The service was great. The waitress is older, but she is very friendly. The only negative I found this time around was the decor. There must be a lot of Chinese pride going on here. The walls are red, the table cloths are pink. It’s not a settling color to enjoy dining to, but hey… when the food is good, it’s only a small detail.
China Star (their Chinese name, translated, means “come, come in!”) also offers a hand-written, all-Chinese menu, with such delicacies as pig’s ear or potato stir fry. I stayed away from these, at least for now.
No Responses to “China Star”
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.