It was sad, to say goodbye in the parking lot, and as we were pulling out, I asked the kids where they wanted to eat. They were sort of half-heartedly tossing out chicken nugget places and NONE of us wanted to go to any of them. Maggie asked me where I wanted to eat, and I said, "Someplace different...maybe Chinese." There was an eruption of delight in the backseat! YES! CHINESE!!!
My kids have never eaten Chinese, but they were certainly ready to give it a go.
We were on the West end of Billings and the only Chinese restaurant I know of in that area is The Jade Palace; I was pretty sure they had a buffet, so that's where we went. The Jade Palace is charmingly built in the style of a big old pagoda, stone lions out front, round doors in the entry; it looked EXACTLY like what they thought a Chinese restaurant should!
We skipped across the parking lot, and Angus trotted ahead to open the doors for us. It was all he could do, because they were HEAVY, but my little man finally got the first door open and held it as Maggie and I entered. He was so proud! I was so proud! Maggie was unimpressed, because it was taking entirely too long to get into the building...
When we finally made it to the counter, the kids put their sweaty little paws on it, with noses between and excitedly asked the host, "Do you have chopsticks?!". The host was a Chinese gentleman about 65 years of age...very solemn...and he confirmed that the restaurant did, indeed, have chopsticks. Maggie then put her hands together in front of her face and bowed to him. Oh, yes. She did. He was startled, as was I, and once we'd recovered, he showed us to our table. I told him, on our way, that this was the first time my kids had had Chinese; I'm sure this came as no surprise.
Took us awhile to get to the table, because he seated us about 1/2 mile from the counter; as far away from him and any other potential customers as possible. This suited all of us, because I truly had no idea what to expect from the kids. Before we sat down, Maggie once again did her rather dramatic Chinese bow, and this time she got a slight one in return. Oh, dear...
We had the buffet, of course, and the kids were very brave, trying nearly every dish. They were particularly entranced with the sweet and sour chicken and the green jello in the salad bar. Bright, shiny, colorful; Chinese food is fun!
Back at the table, they tore into the food with chopsticks, impatiently moving forks to the side. Angus stabbed and Maggie scooped. It was so entertaining for me to watch that I didn't eat much right at first, although the food was pretty tasty...in a generic way. Angus had noodles all the way down his shirt, sauce on his chin. Maggie fought with the rice. She loves rice, but this rice wasn't sticky enough to grab or scoop with chopsticks, so she finally had to resort to a spoon, much to her disappointment.
The waitress we had was very kind and at the end of our meal brought not only the requisite fortune cookies and tea, but also take home bags for the kids with 5 more fortune cookies each AND take-home chopsticks! Thrills!
Maggie took the fortunes very seriously. Hers said she was destined to be a leader of some sort. (As if we didn't know that already!) When we ran errands, later, she informed anyone who would listen that she was going to be a leader but she didn't know of what. Hmmm...
When we went to pay the bill, the seating host was oddly nowhere to be seen...
Very curious....
We took time to visit the stone lions out front and I thought to take a couple pictures with my phone. I wish I had done that inside, but in a way, it was more fun to just experience the whole thing without stopping to do that.
One of the lions had a red, rubber ball in its mouth that they couldn't get out. Maggie made up several stories as to how it got there and Angus was really hoping for blood of some sort, but nothin'.
1 comment:
Bowed. Haha.
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