Fancy-pants Chinese Food

(This is totally a post with "Nay Nay Contraire" written all over it.)

At the moment, I am in Vegas completely living it up. It's 11:09 p.m. and I, 29, am sitting on my bed with the remains of my fancy-pants Chinese food on a plate near my feet. To my credit, I'm writing. BUT STILL. My mom and her (completely awesome) BFF went to see Donny and Marie Osmond at 7:30 p.m. It's a 90-minute show and I know they had backstage passes, but really. I hope my mom's not making out with Donny Osmond right now, even though it would fulfill a teenage fantasy of hers, I'm sure. And I'm going to stop right there before I (a) squick myself out or (b) incur the wrath of my mother.

We were going to grab some dinner when she returned, but when it got to be 10:19 and my mother's phone was still off, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Every time I've stayed at New York New York prior to this, I've been intrigued by Chin Chin. I've eaten at the Chin Chin in Los Angeles, but never the one in the hotel. This afternoon, the mom and I split a Chinese chicken salad... And I just went back for some orange chicken. Now, the salad was perfectly lovely. It was the size of a toddler's head and easily split between two people. And when you take into consideration the extra amount of time it takes to eat shredded lettuce with chopsticks, it worked perfectly. The orange chicken? Ehhhh.

Perhaps I'm spoiled by the abundance of cheap Chinese food outlets in my neck of the woods (Yang Chow, I am looking at YOU, even if you're not really cheap), but this kind of...sucks. If I'm gonna pay $14.50 plus $1.50 for steamed rice plus tax and gratuity, don't make it mostly undercooked onions and bell peppers. For $14.50, I best be getting a container full of non-Weight-Watchers-approved morsels of battered goodness. Really lame, Chin Chin. REALLY LAME.

ALSO? Your to-go chopsticks are sucky and puny!

At least my fortune cookie had a good fortune. Apparently my fondest dream is going to come true this year. This is a higher-priced fortune cookie, so I'm presuming a higher-priced soothsayer. And you get what you pay for, right?

Orange chicken excluded.