In the latter part of the 1980s, I took a series of Chinese cooking classes being taught by Karen Yau through Kingsport Adult Education at D-B. Karen, her Eastman engineer husband Cheuk and her father owned and operated the China House Restaurant in the Greenacres Shopping Center in Kingsport. After thoroughly enjoying the classes and expressing enthusiasm, Karen allowed me to take it a step further and employed me to learn real restaurant-style Chinese cooking at her restaurant. This was a most eye-opening experience where I learned a great deal. Her father was about seventy at the time and spoke almost no English. When Karen wasn't available to translate, he taught by example and he was quite a teacher. Just learning to operate the typical Chinese restaurant gas stove was quite an experience. You may not realize this but the stove is also a sink! Quckly cutting up 10 lbs. of onions, making two gallons of fried rice on a wok almost three feet across or beating eggs with two chopsticks was educational. The family meals, down home Chinese-style at the end of the evenings were most enjoyable and I quickly learned that instead of lots of the meat with a bit of rice like we eat it, they make it a bit of meat with lots of rice. I guess that's how they stay so trim! I shall forever be in Karen, Cheuk and her father's debt for these experiences.
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China One
4334 West Stone Drive
Kingsport, TN 37660-7253
(423) 247-5777
Tucked away in the Allandale Shopping Center is one of the area's best Chinese restaurants. Many people even on the West side of Kingsport don't realize it's there but should make the effort to find it. The couple that own it produce excellent cuisine at reasonable prices. I've been eating there for several years and it just keeps getting better all the time. The lady that takes your order's English also has improved considerably. The restaurant does primarily a take-out business but has a medium-sized dining room that currently seats 38 people in booths and tables. It could seat a lot more if they put in more furniture.
My daughter and I had a late lunch there today. If you go between 11AM and 3PM, they have a long list of lunch specials that average $5. You get a large entree along with a big mound of some of the best pork and vegetable fried rice that I've eaten in a long time.
I had the Hunan Twin Delights (L18: $5) which consists of tender beef and chicken with vegetables in a very flavorful, slightly sweet and not too spicy brown sauce. Vegetables included snow peas, bamboo shoots, a couple of water chestnut slices, broccoli, Chinese cabbage and bell pepper slices. It was wonderful and well deserving of it's name.
My daughter had the Chicken with Broccoli (L7: $5). Once again, lots of tasty tender chicken chunks with fresh broccoli florets and some sliced carrots in a brown sauce that was somewhat different from my Hunan dish. Very tasty and is also available with beef or pork along with the broccoli. She had to ask for a take out box as it was more than she could eat at the time.
My daughter ordered the Wonton Soup as an appetizer and I'll have to say this about China One: at most Chinese restaurants, when you order wonton soup, you get a whole lot of soup and if you're lucky maybe one or two wontons. At China One, you get at least three large, filled wontons topped with fresh sliced green onions. Very tasty and not bland like many as they use white pepper to season it with. They accompany their soups with a saucer of freshly fried wonton noodle strips. So many restaurants have a tendency to serve these soup accompaniments that are hardly fresh. Nothing says "bleh" to me like getting a bowl of rancid fried noodle strips with my soup. It makes me wonder about the freshness of the rest of what they serve. This is not an issue at China One. Their ingredients always seem to be quite fresh and I applaud them for staying on top of things.
This restaurant also is on top of their noodle dishes. Their Singapore Chow Mai Fun (#46: $5.50/$8.75) is one of the best examples of this dish that's also known elsewhere as Singapore Mei Fun. Spicy and yellow from hot curry seasoning, loaded with meats, shrimp and vegetables along with fine Mei Fun rice noodles, even the small-sized dish will feed two if they're not famished. They are also one of the few restaurants around that still offer Shrimp Toast (#11: $3.75/4). This exquisitely tasty and somewhat greasy appetizer dish consists of seasoned shrimp ground into a paste that's placed between two pieces of bread and deep fried as toast points. The old Golden Dragon at Wilcox/E. Sevier introduced me to this guilty pleasure. Also, you should try their Egg Foo Young dishes. For the unfamiliar, this is basically a meat and vegetable egg omelet done Chinese-style with a brown gravy over it. It's more yummy than you can imagine and China One does a great job with this dish. I had the Chicken Egg Foo Young (#49: $6.50) a few days ago and it was three saucer-sized pieces covered with their flavorful brown gravy along with a goodly portion of white steamed rice. Don't be afraid to try new things: fear no food!
China One also has a Japanese menu I assume was their response to the wave of pseudo-Japanese hibatchi restaurants that have popped up in the area in recent years. While I can't vouch for these, I've been there when people placed take out orders so they must be acceptable. They are some of their most expensive menu items. I would recommend sticking with what they do best: excellent Chinese dishes. One good result from this diversification is that you can ask for Shrimp Sauce, which is what my daughter puts on her fried rice there. She says it's good. I say it's blasphemy! :)
Take it from me, do your tastebuds a favor and visit China One soon. You and your wallet will not be disappointed. It's a real family restaurant and don't be surprised if their cute little daughter offer's drink refills. These are real hard-working folks, not a corporation and deserve the fruits of the American dream from their talent and hard work.
I am rarely on that side of town anymore, but I will certainly keep that place in mind. Thanks for sharing. I play in a band, that has an appetite for Chinese, but it's more of the all you can eat buffet styles, and my experiences have been mixed. While I am here, just let me say, that your new Blog is off to an awesome start!
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