Chinese Restaurant

BEIJING -- In a city where the culinary scene includes Cultural Revolution-theme restaurants and Folies Bergere-style dinner theaters, one of the most entertaining new places to eat is under water.Beginning on Valentine's Day weekend, the Blue Zoo aquarium began offering candlelight dinners in a restaurant that moves through an acrylic underwater tunnel. Over roast pork loin and red wine, diners sit transfixed as scuba divers hand-feed sand tiger sharks and targetfish cruise about the 1.2 million-gallon tank.

The last boarded-up vestige of the old Oakland Mills Village Center has disappeared, replaced by Congee House, a new Chinese restaurant that residents hope will bring good fortune.Rejuvenation of the long-empty Hardee's building facing Stevens Forest Road is the kind of progress that local leaders want as Howard County looks more toward preservation of older communities after 35 years of fast growth.Neighborhood leaders are delighted to have what Village Board President David Hatch calls "the most visible building in the village center" back in business, but they're concerned that having a second Chinese restaurant might be more than the center can support.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- A 12-year-old boy who was kidnapped at gunpoint Nov. 27 from his Connecticut home was found unharmed early yesterday in New York City by law enforcement officials and returned to his home in Meriden, the FBI said yesterday.But the case was far from closed, as the authorities continued to search for the two Asian men who had carried the boy, Wei Yang, out of his home without a jacket, shoes or socks after tying up his sister and mother.The FBI's Connecticut office, which is handling the investigation, was unusually secretive about the case, saying that the release of any additional information could jeopardize the investigation.

"A pony bit me on the stomach in Chincoteague," Lou is saying as I sit down at the table.Did I come in late? I say. Did I miss something?"A pony bit him on the stomach in Chincoteague," Paulie says, looking over the menu. "Are we sharing or not?"Don't start with this, I say."We're sharing," Lou says. "In a Chinese restaurant, you share."Paulie starts flipping the pages of the menu, holding it up to the light. "Where is that written?" he says. "Where is the rule written that in Chinese restaurants you share?

A charred brick wall and the damaged remains of a Chinese restaurant were among the few signs yesterday that century-old buildings once stood along South Second Street in downtown Oakland.The five-alarm blaze Sunday that destroyed five businesses and left 11 people homeless has dealt some serious blows to the long-standing efforts of community leaders to revitalize the Garrett County seat."We've worked hard the past five years or so to revitalize the downtown business area," Oakland Mayor Asa McCain said yesterday.

Joyce Chen, 76, who introduced much of America to Mandarin Chinese food through her restaurants, cookbook and TV show, died Tuesday of Alzheimer's disease in Lexington, Mass. Born in Beijing, she fled the Communist regime with her husband and children in 1949 and settled in Cambridge, Mass. In 1958 she opened the first Mandarin Chinese restaurant in New England.Harold Edward Montgomey, 52, a country music performer and father of country music star John Michael Montgomery, died of cancer Tuesday in Lancaster, Ky.Richard Pranke, 83, an FBI agent who raided the hide-outs of well-known 1930s gangsters such as Doc Barker and Alvin Karpis, died of a stroke Monday in St. Paul, Minn.

Instead of crab cakes and hot pork sandwiches, diners nibbled fried rice and soft noodles yesterday at a new Chinese restaurant in Ellicott City, on the former site of Buell's, once one of Howard County's oldest taverns.Uncle Y.Y.'s Szechuan Restaurant opened its doors yesterday in the building that once housed Buell's, a 53-year-old restaurant that was known for its home-style food and as a gathering place for service clubs.Buell's opened in 1939 and had stayed in the Buell family for three generations.

Tucked away in back of the Lake Falls Village shopping center is a small restaurant called the Panda Chinese Gourmet. It's the neighborhood Chinese restaurant, the place where you get your carryout lo mein on the way home from work. Or -- when convenience is more important than great food - you stop here for a bite to eat.It performs this useful function very well. This is a pretty dining room and, maybe more importantly, a soothing one. The colors are shades of blond and beige, the dominant motif is bamboo, and, of course, there are pandas.

I'm betting that the Hunan Wok is the wave of the future. I know it doesn't look it, this quiet little carry-out/eat-in tucked away in the Atrium of the Greenspring Shopping Center. The tiny room is decorated in the style of the rest of the shoppingI'm betting that the Hunan Wok is the wave of the future. I know it doesn't look it, this quiet little carry-out/eat-in tucked away in the Atrium of the Greenspring Shopping Center. The tiny room is decorated in the style of the rest of the shopping center -- soft colors, blond wood furniture, a skylight -- plus a few Chinese XTC decorations.

Baltimore has its first Indonesian restaurant; but if you didn't know it, you'd never guess. First of all, it's called the China Palace. No clues there. And then it's been around awhile as a Chinese restaurant -- six years, to be exact.Still, this isn't a case of a Chinese restaurant offering a couple of Indonesian dishes. The China Palace has a complete menu of Indonesian food, separate from the Chinese menu, and an Indonesian chef, Juw Liao Ti, to cook them. The last time you could get anything like it in Baltimore was 20 or so years ago when the Wynnewood Towers dining room offered a ristaffel.

Baltimore prosecutors said Monday that a man who opened fire in a Chinese restaurant last year has received a 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to assault and using a handgun. In an attempted robbery March 6, 2008, prosecutors said, Fernando Perez, 24, shot his own accomplice and a 15-year-old girl inside Yeung's House Chinese Food in the 4500 block of Reisterstown Road. Both suffered minor injuries. Four other people in the restaurant at the time were uninjured. Perez, of the 2400 block of Loyola Northway, pleaded guilty Sept.

An elderly man with thick glasses lugs a bag of sweet rice from a grocery store onto a rundown street. In a nearby building, a faded dragon's head grimaces in a hallway hung with yellowed photos. Across the street, a painted wall advertises "family dinners served all hours" at the long-gone China Inn. These are among the few remaining vestiges of the city's Chinatown, a Park Avenue block that once had bustling restaurants, stores and meeting halls, as well as exuberant Lunar New Year's parades.

What's a suburban shopping center without a Chinese restaurant? Hunan Legend, which has been dispensing egg rolls, chicken lo mein and other tried-and-true dishes from a Howard County village center for a dozen years, is a perfect example of the breed. The restaurant is spacious and brightly lit inside, with white tablecloths on large round tables perfect for sharing food. The unbelievably lengthy menu offers mostly Hunan and Szechwan dishes, and touches down briefly in Thailand with a version of pad Thai.

Why do you think you can go to a Chinese restaurant and get a huge dish of food for eight bucks? Do you think the Chinese have invented a cheaper way of raising chickens?"

Is it a cafe? An art gallery? The new Station North Arts Cafe Gallery (1816 N. Charles St., 410-625-6440) is a little bit of both, with what one of the owners, who calls himself Downtown Kevin Brown, says is an "artsy funky vibe." The cafe serves breakfasts (like waffles and French toast) and lunches (soups and salads). Brown's partner, William Maughlin, does most of the cooking. Brown handles the desserts - most notably a bread pudding with vanilla sauce, and a wicked brownie. The bad news is that the cafe is open only 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff writer Don O'Briant, 62, was confronted Friday by a gunman believed to be Brian Nichols who stole his car, tried to abduct him and pistol-whipped him. Here is O'Briant's account of his encounter: It's funny how your mind goes through all these scenarios. How am I going to get out of this? Do I run now? Do I talk to him? Is he gonna shoot me and leave me lying here? When it was going on, I thought I was just involved in a routine carjacking. I had no idea he'd just killed people.

Most nights, Chelliah Johnson or a co-worker would pick up dinner at a Chinese restaurant across Route 198 from the Laurel motel where they worked the overnight shift. Sunday was Johnson's turn. About 9 p.m., he headed out on foot, a departure from his usual drive across the busy road from the Red Carpet Inn to the Chung King restaurant. Anne Arundel County police are searching for two drivers suspected of racing through Laurel and killing him in what they described as one of the most gruesome hit-and-runs in recent memory.

Yao Qiang Deng barely glanced at the two defendants, the men twice his size responsible for his months of nightmares. Instead, he focused on the Mandarin interpreter and spoke in his native language about the impact of a robbery prosecutors describe as one of the county's cruelest. "I have difficulties sleeping," the court interpreter translated for Deng. "I have lost wages." Eight months ago, Deng, a chef at the Yao Han Chinese restaurant on Liberty Road who was working to bring his family to the United States from China, was tortured in his bedroom above the restaurant and robbed of his wallet, automated teller machine card and watch.

In a year when Americana took on an almost mythic importance, nostalgia ruled, and there was a resurgence of interest in comfort food, Baltimore often went in a different direction, at least as far as new restaurants were concerned. Let's call 2002 the year of globalization -- maybe even the year of Asian restaurants, although the city did get a good new Lebanese restaurant, the Carlyle Club on University Parkway. (Come to think of it, Lebanon is in Asia.) When a Maryland fixture like the Manor Tavern in Monkton introduces a new menu that includes scallops Shanghai and rare ahi tuna with Chinese dumplings as well as old favorites, you know Asian food has gone mainstream.

Reviewing restaurants can often be exciting. But sometimes the reality is a place that has absolutely no redeeming qualities, a place so grim that it's not worth wasting this space on. That's the kind of place that Cathy the vegetarian and I walked out of on a recent Saturday night. It was Chinese, a cuisine we both adore. From the outside, the place looked like your average bright little Chinese restaurant in a suburban strip mall. Inside was hell, partly due to the fact that the restaurant was the site of a raucous birthday party for a 1- and a 4-year-old.