Food, glorious food
There’s a certain Chinese restuarant at the corner of Buford Highway and Shallowford Dr. that has been a perennial favorite of me and mine since our college days. Friday night out frequently meant an early dinner at Little Szechuan followed by a movie at the gaudy Regal Hollywood 24 just up the service drive. It was a cheerful, delectable pattern that crumbled soon after people began graduating and leaving for parts unknown. Eventually, going out to Buford Highway meant trekking all the way across the city for some, and our frequently, almost weekly visits faded quietly away.
I think it’s because we’d forgotten what we were missing. I went last night with Heather and Jason, who were in town for the weekend (yay!), and who I haven’t seen in quite some time. And with one bite, all three of us agreed immediately: the food really is that much better than the Chinese you find everywhere else. It’s worth the drive. It’s worth the inconvenient timing. (Although the restaurant has recently moved its closing time back by half an hour, 9:30 is still a tad early for any night, and especially a weekend. We won’t even get into how they’re inexplicably closed on Tuesdays.) And it’s definitely worth the price.
Instead of kitschy fortune cookies, the Little Szechuan crew brings you orange slices. They remember your name and your favorites; when we were regulars, rare was the meal they didn’t bring us complimentary green beans or a complimentary appetizer. And I particularly appreciate how the waitress was quick to point out (more to me than to Heather and Jason) that a certain soup had pork in it, and were we sure we wanted some? (We did, because we knew there was pork in it, and I hadn’t planned on having any, but it’s Jason’s absolute favorite.)
Little Szechuan’s not the place you go for glitz or glamour. It’s where you make your comfortable memories, that tucked away informal spot you go to in your favorite jeans and with your favorite friends, the one that always has that exact something you didn’t even realize you’d been craving.