Restaurant Review: China Garden. Provo, Utah.

In my 63 years of living I have yet to walk into a Chinese restaurant where they are glad to see me. Usually they treat me like Dracula drifting into a blood bank; 'You here to suck us dry, or what?' After giving it careful and prejudiced thought, I have come to the conclusion that most proprietors feel an awful injustice has been done to them; they were meant to be Mandarin satraps or Confucian scholars, not grubbing for money over a greasy hot wok twelve hours a day. So they take it out on their customers.

When I asked for the tangerine beef, which is on their online menu, the lady hovering over me grimaced as if I had stepped on her bunion, then said "Don't have; never have it."

I had been looking forward to this particular dish. I researched it on Google and went without any breakfast this morning so I would have a good appetite to enjoy it. And then the lady tells me I can't have it. They don't have it. It's been a phantom, a willow-the-wisp, a fool's errand, all along. So I settled for the beef Szechwan.

  The beef was tender and the sauce was spicy. I got a bowl of hot and sour soup and a fountain drink with it. I paid $9.80. But it wasn't tangerine beef. So I'm only giving this place 2 Burps.

My fortune cookie slip read: "Because of your melodic nature, the moonlight never misses an appointment."  I'm putting that one in my hope chest.

However, to be fair, they do have the largest men's room I have ever seen in a restaurant outside of a big franchise:

That counts for a lot to a fat guy like me.

Having made a thorough study of the works of Sax Rohmer, I believe I may speak with some authority when it comes to the many and varied types of torture to be found in a Chinese restaurant. I have already described one, namely the perfidious Tangerine Switcheroo. Here are a few others to look out for:

Chopsticks of Death. Many of these places give you a set of balsa wood chopsticks that are not quite split in half, so you have to pull them apart like a wishbone. Only, sometimes they don't come apart very easily and so you really yank on them -- then they explode into a shower of splinters, blinding you and quite possibly bringing on cardiac arrest.

The Mockery of Spice. It's not marked as 'spicy' on the menu, and yet when you shovel the first bite into your mouth you can immediately feel your tongue turning into hot asphalt. It's no use arguing about it with the waitress; she'll only bring you a plate of something else, if you insist, that is so bland your taste buds will catch the red eye to Miami for the next samba festival.

Water, water, everywhere . . .  During the start of your meal, before the soy sauce and MSG kick in, your waitress will stop by every 47 seconds to refill your water glass. But once you begin craving a long cool drink of water, all the help has evaporated. You are left to pant out your life on the floor, with an arid tongue so swollen it could pass for a sea cucumber.

The Belly Squeeze. All the table and chairs are bolted to the floor, so if you are a little on the heavy side, and try to slide into your seat, you find that  your gut is being sawn away by the table's edge. Frantic movement just increases the ripping action, and you're disemboweled in a matter of minutes.