Empress of China Finally Re-Opens and Still Has Flint’s Best Chinese Food
After what seemed like an eternity, Empress of China is finally back open and is once again serving up Flint's best Chinese food.
Empress of China very quietly closed, I believe the sign posted outside said it was due to remodeling, roughly six weeks ago according to fellow patrons of the restaurant online.
I discovered the awful news when meeting my wife for lunch there about a month ago. There is no feeling more deflating than thinking you're about to gorge yourself on a family style plate full of the finest Mongolian beef in town and being met with a "closed for remodeling sign."
Seriously, I sat there in the parking lot mourning the lunch that would never be as my wife proposed other options. Every alternative seems like eating out of a dumpster when you have your heart set on Empress of China. I caved after 10 minutes of sulking in an empty parking and settled for some inferior Chinese food from up the street. It was okay.
Yesterday, while running some business-related errands on Dort Highway I noticed that there were cars in the parking lot. The night before, my wife had tasked me with picking a restaurant to eat at, and Empress of China being open again made that an easy chore.
We went in around 7p, and it was busier than usual. After a 15-20 minute wait, we were seated. While they did seem a bit understaffed for the volume of business last night, they still provided us with solid service and great food, as always. We ordered more than usual in celebration of their return -- two of the Empress Double Sticks as an appetizer, the Mongolian beef (a necessity), sweet & sour chicken, and shrimp fried rice, which I had never ordered before, but it was amazing.
There didn't seem to be any obvious remodeling, but I'm not the most observant guy so who knows? There were a bunch of rumors Facebook rumors floating around as to why they were closed, but none of that matters to me. I'm just glad they're back.
Upon paying our bill, I asked the gentleman at the counter when they reopened, and he informed me that it was their first day back. My noticing they were open on their first day back must've been fate.
I should've taken pictures of the food to include with this article, but I was so damn hungry I forgot, hence all the rando Insta-pics throughout the post. Besides, if really you want to see what the food looks like, just go there and eat some. You can thank me later.