With dear daughter No. 1 and her teammates laboring the hot summer afternoon during camp, the Fat Man and the remaining family were on the hunt for a lunchtime stop last week.
It was a bit of a tweener moment—we had enough time where eating fast food on the go wasn’t necessary, but we also didn’t have the time, nor the want, of sitting down to be served.
Seeing as we were heading back to Ohio and passing up and over 470, we decided to swing down to South Wheeling. If there’s one thing the misses does enjoy, it’s Chinese food.
There’s a little spot yours truly was familiar with from prior stops. We attempted to go there a few months ago, but the restaurant was temporarily closed. I read something online about the staff en masse going to visit family.
But on this day, Bridgelin Chinese Restaurant was open, and considering I’d raved to her about the quality of the buffet, despite it being smaller than most Asian buffets, it warranted a stop.
We came during prime lunch buffet hours, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Yes, the restaurant was open.
The buffet? Closed. Boo!
But, seeing as we were here and once a certain someone has a hankering for Chinese food, there’s no changing her mind, here we ate.
I can admit, I’ve been to Bridgelin multiple times through the years, both as a customer and picking up food to deliver via Door Dash in my spare time. Not once have I ever ordered anything off the actual menu.
I always got the buffet.
So, when our friendly server brought us the menus, I finally got a chance to see what all was offered. I admit I was taken aback. There was a nice selection of typical American Chinese food offerings. But there was also a dedicated Cantonese-style menu, along with a few Thai options.
There’s a lunch menu with cheaper prices and smaller portions. We both considered this route but opted to get full-sized portions. If we were going to sample Bridgelin’s actual food, not just the buffet fare, we would do it right.
I’ll say this, our food took a LONG time to come to us, despite it not being packed. I quickly learned why which, I’m assuming, is the likely reason the buffet wasn’t open.
I’m pretty sure there was only one person that day. Our server was incredibly friendly and more than helpful. But he’d be absent from the dining rooms for long periods. We discovered why when he delivered our appetizers. On his way back to the back, he put his apron back on.
I can’t be 100 percent sure, but I’m thinking our server was also our chef on this day. Kudos to him, because as we were enjoying lunch, other patrons entered the restaurant and he sat, server, and cooked for them all.
The Food
Speaking of appetizers, we cannot try a new Asian food restaurant without sampling the fried dumplings. These were pork fried dumplings, and they were meaty. Now I may be in the minority when I say this, but I’d put them on par with Golden’s from the Island. They were tasty and, given the plumpness, felt like you received more to eat.
We both tried a different dish than we’re used to ordering at Chinese restaurants. The GF opted for Sesame Beef, while I continued my quest to find different types of spicy food and ordered the Szechuan Chicken. She went with white rice; I opted for fried.
As usual, I told our server to hold the veggies. No sense in wasting food, plus no veggies usually means a wee extra chicken, and who’d complain about that?
The first bite or so was good, but I wasn’t really getting the spicy. It was a bit of a slow roll, but the further I delved into the chicken, the hotter it got. It was spicy, but not too spicy, and really complemented the taste. For a first-timer, I was thoroughly pleased.
The GF too enjoy her Sesame beef, although to be honest, it tasted and looked more like chicken than beef. It mattered not. She enjoyed it and would order it again.
The only downside is, given the lack of workers that day, we spent more time there than we’d liked and had to rush back to retrieve daughter No. 1 from practice. But, we made it on time and found a new restaurant to add to our rotation in the process.
I’ll call that a win any day.
Bridgelin Chinese Restaurant is located at 76 29th Street in Wheeling, across from the Dairy Queen.
