China Bistro inside of Pan Asia Grocery Store at 141 and Manchester 11-11-2022

 Mike and I knew that on Veterans Day many restaurants feed Veterans for free and the places are packed.  We tried to stay away from that type of restaurant.  

I had recently read an article about the 26 Best Places to Eat in STL right now.  The first one was this Chinese restaurant tucked into a corner of an Asian grocery story.

It was cold and windy as we made our way into the store.  All the people in line were super friendly.  The workers weren't friendly, but they weren't "not friendly" they were all just working super hard and super fast.  This place has about a dozen or so tables, but they also do a huge amount of take out orders.  

Mike had read that this place has the best BBQ pork fried rice in the area.  So, that's what he got.  It was $8.  He was happy with it.  He said it had plenty of pork and just enough vegetables.  Everything was fresh and you could tell that it had just been made in a wok.  It came out quickly and it was steaming hot.

I ordered spicy seafood soup with thick noodles.  It was good, but it wasn't great.  I wasn't unhappy.  It was HUGE.  There were scallops, shrimp, and squid in the soup.  There were carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions, and a bit of cabbage in there, too.  The broth was somewhat spicy, but it seemed a little watery.  The noodles were good...not too thick or large.

This is a very authentic Chinese restaurant, so they don't have things like beef and broccoli or general Zao's chicken.  But they do have a lot more things I'd like to try.  I'm not a big Peking duck fan, but they do have that and you can just get a few slices with some vegetables and rice.  

It is also super fun to walk around the grocery store.  Check out the fish counter!!  

We will totally come back here.  It is exactly 30 minutes from our house.  So, not too far for decent Chinese food.