Since I mentioned the purse tuffets they have at Wing Lei in Las Vegas last week, I realized that I hadn’t yet posted pics from our visit there. The restaurant is in the Wynn Hotel/Casino, and is just beautiful. It was the first Chinese restaurant in North America to be awarded a Michelin star.
There’s a dress code, so everyone looks great, too. Once when Leslie and I were going somewhere for supper in Vegas, I kept some heels in a bag I was carrying so I could wear my (cue Forrest Gump voice:) comfortable shoes until we got there, because unless you’re Ubering places, getting from hotel A to hotel B for a meal or a show is a pretty long walk. If you see people wearing a suit + New Balance or fab dress + Keds, you know what’s going on. They’re speed walking to a reservation, have a bag of dress shoes to change into, and will swish into the restaurant looking all 100.
Anyway, even purses have a proper place at Wing Lei.
Those chopstick holders…
amuse
The duck was crazy good and — ohmygosh I’ve forgotten what the other dish is, but I’m thinking kung pao, maybe? — plus even though we passed on a dessert from the menu, they brought these little sweets at the end of the meal. And that macaron is presh.
PS: Gained a whole new appreciation for Chinese (and other cuisine, really) restaurants and the families who own and run them from Jennifer Lee’s 2009 book, Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. So much love and respect for these families who to try to make it in this country, regardless how much they ‘keep it real’ from how it was done in their hometown, to how much they try to appeal to American tastes by changing it up. We’ve come to seek out Chinese restaurants in little towns to support fellow small businesses and the good people that run them. And it seems they especially need our help right now. We’re definitely going out to one this week in support. Some random pics:
China Garden in Marks, Mississippi
Chinese Sea Food Fast Restaurant sign in Yazoo City, Mississippi
In downtown Russellville, Alabama, now highly populated by Hispanic businesses (I like the hot food, esp the pollo asado, at El Quetzal in the Buena Vista supermarket and the pastries at Mexico Bakery), a Chinese restaurant with a Spanish name: La Cascada Chinese Cuisine.