Let’s welcome CJ Chan to Dayton

Welcome to CJ Chan Restaurant! Chinese and Japanese cuisine blends traditional Culinary art with the modern concept of fine dining in an elegant contemporary atmosphere.

Culinary art? Elegant atmosphere? No MSG? What is this place, a Chinese restaurant or a museum? Chinese food junkies know the best Sino chow is made in grim and dimly lit storefronts in the worst neighborhoods in town. The “elegant atmosphere” in these dives is provided by dudes in wifebeater t-shirts loudly berating their luck and each other in guttural Cantonese. Flames and crackling peanut oil fills the air while the cooks keep one eye out for the INS and the other for the Health Department. Yeah, the men’s room has that required sign telling the employees to wash their hands, but nobody on the payroll reads English. And when the cussing, flaming and health violations are done, these dudes whip up Chinese chuck to die for. When the Old Bandito gets the Jones for Chinese, which is never more than seven days a week, his shadow darkens the already poorly illuminated Chef Leo’s Chinese-Mexican at the intersection of Wyoming and Illinois. The lunch special, if Leo and the crew can open by noon, is more than two hombres can eat for less than a five-spot. And during the summer, there is the occasional violent floor show provided by the miscreants in the apartment house across the street. Viva la eggrolls……

On their menu it says “A healthy alternative” and no MSG. ……I want to thank all of you for showing up at this demonstration this afternoon. And despite your understandable anger, we beg that you keep your protest civil. To close this historic rally, the Old Bandito would like to play a protest song he wrote occasion. And I had to go to Hauers for a new G banjer string, so you know this is a big deal. The song is entitled…. Give me my MS (in the key of) G From the Canton there in China, to the Canton in Ohio, I’ve pigged on tasty Chinese food, no matter where I go. I once asked a Chinese chef, if he would pontificate, on what secret ingredient, made Chinese food so great. The question struck him in his tracks, he struck a pensive pose. Not unlike wise Confusius. contemplating an evening rose. “If there was just one thing” he said, “to put in my wok aflame, There is a magic ingredient and I’ll tell you its’ name (he said) …Give me my MSG. Three billion Chinese can’t be wrong, so it’s good enough for me. It puts the zest in the Moo-Goo plate, and the Happy in the Family, so give me my MSG. I guess I’ll never understand, the long and bitter hate, that would be Chinese food critics have for monosodiumglutamate. It’s the cause they say with great dismay for depression and obesity, headache, heartache, hairy palms, schizophrenia and leprosy. But for all the names and all the claims, there’s no scientific facts, to justify a Chinese chef, for giving it the ax. And for most Chinese cuisine junkies, though it makes the nannies pissed, eating healthy food of any kind, ain’t the top thing on our list so Give us our MSG. If Esrati doesn’t want his, then please give his to me. It puts the wow in the General Tsao, and makes ginger chicken heavenly, so give us our MSG. Chairman Mao and his generals, once went into a Peking spot, the decor there was elegant and the waitresses were hot.… Read more »

I went to CJ Chan for a late lunch today and quite enjoyed it.  The food was good, the decor was attractive and the prices were very reasonable.  My friend Jim had California rolls, I had General Tso’s chicken and we split a bowl of edamame.  I like that they have lunch specials until 3 p.m. — we tend to eat lunch late and a lot of place around town serve lunch only until 2.  We’ll go back to CJ Chan.

…call it fate, call it kismet. But it was the cosmic collision of chance with inevitability. For it was noon, and the Old Bandito was hungrier than a woodpecker with a migraine, and hampered by a blood sugar level that was approaching the depth of the Marianas Trench. The location was Irving Avenue at Wilmington, and in a starvation-driven delirium so intense that roadkill became beckoning, there was spied the sign reading CJ Chan’s. Struggling thru the door, the Old Bandito was greeted by a cutie who inquired if the dining would be there or carry-out. Not wanting to alarm the sit-down lunch crowd lest the Coroner need be called, the request was for pork fried rice with two egg rolls to go. Not used to the pleasant decor or the courtesy (or the cuties) at the ghetto Chinese outpost he frequents, the Bandito waited for the life-saving victuals. But an even greater shock was the dispatch with which the order was filled. But as that Dayton-Chinese chef, Vic Cassano, was fond of saying, the proof is in the taste. Skeptical, insofar as pork fried rice is the easiest of the genre to do poorly, the Old Bandito was soon cross-eyed with delight as the specialty was tasty and filling without becoming oil-saturated as hastily made noon orders often are. The egg-roll shells were flaky and delicioso and the perfect snack for driving driving around the Gem City. He life saved, the Old Bandito went about the day’s pursuits a better and changed man.The Old Bandito’s shadow will without question darken the door of CJ Chan’s again. The only critique of the fare; it coulda’ used a little MSG…..

 
…the Old Bandito will have two eggrolls, a couple of wontons, and large order of vindication to go. Research increasingly supports the theory that bacteria, rather than the much maligned MSG, is the culprit in many if not most Chinese food calamities. One rather serious offender is bacillus cereus, which boiling and covering rice actually accelerates contamination once the rice cools. In fact, the food-police inspired war on the benign MSG was approaching the level of mass psychosis. Sidebar: the Old Bandito’s shadow has darkened Chan’s door several times and has yet to be disappointed…