Xiphias G. wrote: >David C. wrote: > >> I haven't been to Aku Aku in five years -- maybe they've gotten >> their act together since then. > >I ate at Aku-Aku once, when I was in elementary school. I got sick. >Everyone at my high school refused to eat there. > >Do you know how *bad* a restaurant has to be to get a high school football >team to refuse to eat there? Yes, that was my impression. My wife's favorite Chinese restaurant is the China Moon in Stoneham, and she orders drinks that come in large, representative porcelain cups -- so she liked Aku-Aku, but after we were there she didn't push going back. > >Aku-Aku may well have improved since then. It certainly can't have gotten >worse, and nobody I know has the literal intestinal fortitude to go in and >find out. > >I've never met anyone who's mentioned eating there twice, and I can't >figure out how they stay in business. All in the interest of science, I went over there. Half an hour later, I'm still able to type. Parking -- very wierd, couldn't figure out which was the "Do not park here or you'll be towed" and which was "Do not park here unless you're going to the restaurant or you'll be towed" but after a few circuits I found what was apparently the restaurant parking area, and the parking attendant (for the T?) said it was OK, and my car was there when I got back. For such a crowded parking lot, it was fairly empty. Same old Bali Hai decor. Very wierd, even moreso considering it's still Cambridge, default seating is in the smoking section. I had the buffet. No soup came with it. The appetizer trays were generally empty, but they were filled in a while. The entrees were all such that if you gave them to somebody who'd spent 35 years in a bomb shelter, they wouldn't be surprised. Roast pork lo mein, egg foo young, mixed vegetables, beef with broccoli. I had chop suey, I think for the first time ever in a restaurant. It wasn't all that different from my father's chow mein, stir-fried bok choi, celery, snow peas, maybe some onion, some garlic, and I think they stirred it with some chicken, and chow mein noodles were right next to it. Everything with dough (egg rolls, Peking ravioli, scallion pie) was gummy. The boneless rib were essentially little pork strips with red sauce. There was no dipping sauce for the Peking ravioli. There was a salad bar, which I skipped, a dessert table (cookies, some sort of bread pudding [also gummy] and some sort of apple pandowdy. And for reasons I don't understand (there's a place on Route 60 in the Belmont/Waltham area that has one too) a soft-serve ice cream machine. I didn't leave feeling that I'd wasted my money ($6.81 plus tip), but feeling that I'd wasted my lunch hour, which I could have spent elsewhere. - - - As I said in this thread, I've been happy with Tokyo; also, when I have business on the 260 block of Concord Ave, the unassuming and longstanding Lucky Garden seems adequate. (I had the General Gau's Chicken lunch special twice and was happy; I ordered sesame noodles once, and was not.)
Boston, MA