The China Inn

They have place mats, and Shirley Temples!

A few months ago Patrick and I found ourselves being sent to The China Inn. "Where is that?" we wondered. Like a good prairie town, Saskatoon has a lot of Asian restaurants, and though this place sounded familiar we really didn't know where we might find it.

So we google-mapped it and realized it was only a few blocks from our house; the sort of faceless, somewhat nondescript restaurant you pass by every day without quite realizing it is there.

It was quite late on a Saturday night. "We might not make it," we worried, rushing over in our car though it was only mere blocks away. (Why walk? This is, after all, a good prairie town, where car is king!)

 We entered and found an entirely empty restaurant. Which was okay. I mean, it was late Saturday night. The place would have had customers earlier, no doubt, and drunken Westsiders would surely stumble in in a hour or so for Shanghai noodles and chicken balls. "We've just caught in in the dead hour," I thought.

Except: there was no staff.

We waited patiently in the doorway, then moved further and further into the restaurant. There was no one in the restaurant, but we could hear a television playing, and, sure enough, when we peeked, we could see an elderly gentleman watching TV, seated at a table, in a room past the restaurant, behind the counter. "What do we do?" I whispered. "I don't want to bother him...."

In the end we just cleared our throats a bunch of times and then said, "Excuse me?" loudly enough that he looked up and summoned someone to come and help us. A woman came out of the back, sat us down, and gave us menus.

Like a good prairie town, this menu had a plethora of cocktails (or "highballs", as we call them here) on the menu. Patrick opted for a Shirley Temple, which seemed like the right sort of drink to order.   We decided to get some wonton soup, which was actually really, really tasty. It was full of vegetables and the broth was savoury and the little wontons were full of nice meat. It actually seemed like someone had made these from scratch! Perhaps the gentleman at his back room table had more responsibilities than just ensuring no one stole the television?

Our second course wasn't nearly as nice as the soup had been. We got two dishes and both appeared to have the same sauce on them -- a reddish sauce that seemed to contain a liberal dousing of red wine vinegar. On the plus side, the dishes did match the colour palate established by the Shirley Temple, not to mention the China Inn's red chairs and reddish-brown table tops, so perhaps they just go for themes?

Will we ever return to the China Inn? I can't say. The soup was great. The staff were friendly (once they realized we were there). The Shirley Temple is always a welcome distraction from the regular non-alcoholic drink world of colas. Perhaps the next time we're wandering past the nondescript restaurant in our Westside 'hood, (or, more likely, driving past in our prairie-approved vehicle) we'll remember to stop in for some lovely soup. We might hold off on the red wine vinegar sauces, though. After all, I can make something that unexciting (and potentially unintended) at home.