I would have never given this place a second thought, but I was eating lunch in the staff lounge at Murphy Hall and one of the other severely underpaid and overworked teaching assistants said their portions were HUGE.

So I paid my first visit and when I got inside I realized it wasn't as much of a hole-in-the-wall as it seemed to be from the outside. The furniture was cleaner, newer, and of more expensive quality and there was even a woodcut on the wall from China. Sure, it's not like an expensive or classy place, but not as much of a dive as I thought.

They have more than 100 items, covering the spectrum of highly-Americanized Chinese food, yer basic chicken chow mein kind of stuff. There are no expensive options, and nothing too exotic. It's all Chinese lunch food. My meal was made fresh, judging by how long it took to cook.

The portions did not overwhelm me in the way I had hoped, but it was a good deal for the money. I was told you get more if you order it to go. I was impressed with the care they used to package the "to go" container, which was different than the usual styrofoam. It was, like, a tinfoil box with a plastic lid in a paper bag, stapled.

So when I warmed it up, well, I had to dump it all on a plate because of the foil. But what can I say? Decent chow, decent price. They could change some of the food pictures, some of which are taking on faded patinas like old magazines from the 1940s, but maybe I can consider that part of the charm.

It doesn't bowl me over, but I sure have any complaints. Good, cheap, and they emphasize a vast variety of options...all familiar, even too familiar.

lunch special is very cheap and includes lots of food. Their food seems more fresh than some asian restaurants. They have a lot of people come in for the lunch special, so they're constantly making fresh food.