Enter The Dragon

After a big day of driving I dropped off the interstate twenty miles west of Kansas City, Missouri. I drove through a chunk of former farmland that was slowly being filled with hotels, a condo complex, and an office park. The landscape felt like a growing tumor. I rolled into the Super 8 parking lot and got a room.

It was time to eat, but I just couldn’t face crossing the highway to frequent the Olive Garden, for so many reasons. Top among them was a guarantee that I wouldn’t hear a pack of waiters force-singing happy birthday to an embarrassed customer. But right at the edge of the office park I’d spied a dingy concrete building with theft bars on the windows. So I braced myself against a freezing wind and walked across frozen farmland to King Dragon.

The smell hit me just inside the door. It was a nasty mixture of cigarette smoke and uncleaned urinals. A jukebox pumped out the dying animal sounds of Axl Rose singing a song. As I moved toward the bar I noticed that all the chairs were covered with duct tape.

When the bartender greeted me I asked what he had on tap.

The short guy in the Hawaiian shirt said “Bud Light.”

I waited for him to continue. But he just looked at me. I glanced behind the bar and saw a single tap missing its handle-knob. So I ordered a Bud Light and sat in a chair that put my chin roughly even with the bar. It was like sitting at a kids’ table for budding alcoholics.

I ordered the Moo Shoo pork and waited while a chain-smoking couple quibbled at the far end of the bar. A few more Guns & Roses songs played. And then my food came.

l stared at a huge plate of beef filled with bamboo shoots and garlic. Accompanying that was a heaping plate of rice. I dug in not knowing what to expect. And it was absolutely amazing. Succulent and perfectly spiced, with just the right amount of heat. It was by far the best Chinese food I’d ever tasted. I wolfed it down with another Bud Light that tasted like Honeydew vine water, perfectly complementing the food.

Hey Olive Garden, know what you can do with those Endless Breadsticks?

As I finished, the guy brought out a to-go box holding six burritos filled with more fantastic Moo Shoo. Those would become tomorrow’s travel food. And when Axl Rose started signing Take Me Down To The Paradise City I knew he’d never find a paradise quite like King Dragon.