Red Dragon House: 312 W 8th St

This popular Chinese restaurant has some really appealing facets: good service, lightening fast cooks, and it's dirt cheap. Lunch specials run around 5 bucks, and include soup and egg roll. And the menu offers dozens of lunch specials, curiously including a number of meats stir fried with that classic staple of the Orient, asparagus. The place is really big, and it's never a problem getting a table, even when eating solo.

Unfortunately, the food ain't so great. This is old school, fried rice and canned baby corn stuff here. The egg drop soup has the most perplexing and unpleasant texture--even for egg drop soup. It's kind of like curdled milk.

For some reason my primary annoyance is that the line at the cash register is typically clogged with yuppies each throwing 4.95 on their credit card. You can wait longer to pay than you do to get your food.

Read more: