Shangri-la — Restaurant in Chattanooga

Let me tell you a story. A story called, "The Prodigal Restaurant." This is a story shrouded in uncertainty, fond recollections, and deductive reasoning. This is the story of me, a pal, and Shangri-la.

Let’s go back in time. Back to the fall of 2013. I was a senior in high school. Running on cafeteria lunches, hormones, and parental supervision. Life was different. Life was good. Life was certain. I was sporting a brand-new hair style that year which had me feeling confident. That, coupled with an invitation to tour UTC with the honors college program, caused me to think I was king of the world. My best friend and I drove ourselves to UTC, taking a day off from high school to do so, and walked around the university learning about racquetball, academics, and cute girls who smiled back.

We were “on our own” for lunch and found ourselves walking around downtown Chatt town. Following no map, but rather letting our stomachs be the guide, we came across a little hole-in-the-wall Asian cuisine restaurant. We entered, enjoyed a delicious nourishment, laughed about our fortunes from the aptly named cookies (When you add the phrase, “In bed” to the end of a fortune cookie’s fortune, it is often humorous), and sent silly emails from our phones. All was well.

Good news! We were both offered scholarships to The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and accepted them! While attending the university our first year, we decided to go back to the restaurant where we had such a good time during our visit. It was no where to be found. Was this all in our imagination? Surely not. We both had similar memories of the day’s events. We went to different places, never confident that any particular place was “the one.” I had given up hope. “It’s gone,” I would say, “we must have been mistaken.”

Flash forward. Last week. My best friend and I are both graduated and working downtown (different places) and decided to meet up for lunch one day. The text conversation is as follows: B* (name redacted for privacy): “Where we going for lunch today boo?” Me: “Somewhere Asian?” B: “love it. Got anywhere in mind?” Me: “There are a lot of options. How is Shangri-la?” B*: “It’s my favorite.” Me: “Let’s go with that then.”

We enter. We get in line to order. I begin to have flashbacks. Recollections. Memories. Then B** turns to me and says, “I think this is where we came on our tour.” And then it happened. The memories flooded back. I could hear our laughter. I could see the innocence of youthful bliss on our faces. The hope of the “next page in our lives.” I could see it all again. He was right. This was it.

The food was pretty good. Will...

We've driven by this hole-in-the-wall place for over a decade, but it's one of those places you mention, but then immediately forget exists. Today was an exception.

The 'Open' sign wasn't lit up despite Google saying they were open, so we nearly kept driving, but I got out to check, and the door swung open freely. Once inside, it's what you'd expect of a small, hidden place. Nothing fancy, but nothing awful. There were some booths to sit at. The lighting was fine. Most importantly, it was clean... very clean. I liked that. Even the sushi counter was clean.

The service was to be as expected as well. The workers didn't say much but held a heavy accent, so it's safe to assume English isn't their first language, but she was happy to take our order... which was flawless. Everything we ordered was in our bag, not a thing was missing.

The food was really good, as well. I had the Mongolian beef. It was delicious, but much spicier than I had expected. That's on me, though. They clearly listed it as spicy. Their vegetable eggrolls were crispy, and the insides weren't mush... another winning point. The kids loved their egg drop soup, my daughter being very particular about the places she gets her egg drop soup. This place passed her test.

There are only complaints I have about the food would be that the "fried rice" isn't the type of fried rice I'd expect from a Chinese food place. It's basically white rice from a steamer that had been colored with soy sauce. It was still tasty, but it's not what I would be choosing if I wanted authentic fried rice. Also, I didn't see an option for pork eggrolls. I would have gladly paid the upcharge.

Overall, I'm super glad we stopped in. The portions were huge. I have leftovers for later! And the prices weren't too bad. We paid a little bit more than we would have at McDonald's for double the amount of food, containers we can recycle as Tupperware, and a much...

I travel the country for my occupation and take advantage of the local cuisine, always. A particular favorite cuisine is Chinese. Out of the over 200 restaurants i have been to this location not only had the worst service, but food was subpar and can tell it sat there for hours.

The staff refused to answer any of my questions on the menu instead walked away rude. Not getting a "hello" or "how are you" is fine but to not want to ask questions on your menu is not the way a restaurant should operate. Then when i asked for a chicken upgrade on my rice the clerk suggested i didnt want it be cause it "cost more". Of course the statement simple but the tone was very suggestive. I order this everywhere restaurant, Implying i couldnt afford it. I insisted i wanted it she theb huffed and puffed finally punch in the order.

The food was old you can tell, which I'll deal with but the service was the absolute worse and felt discriminatory. I have never had such terrible service, the city of Chattanooga should send in a few secret shoppers to reconfirm this review. For someone visiting the city for the first time it has dented my experience here, but not destroyed...