Ming’s Chinese Restaurant

My grandmother loved this place and this place was my first introduction to Chinese food. I remember her calling in orders and picking up various meals for us to try so I wasn’t eating just the normal fair of burgers and pizza and being delighted with funny sounding names, good sauces, yummy foods, and all that jazz. This was the 80’s and early 90’s and this place has not aged well. Appearances aside the food just isn’t very good and with so many Chinese joints in town you need to have good food to stand out. I guess it doesn’t help that it’s stuck in downtown between offices and banks and houses. At this point I think the owners just run this out of habit more than anything else.

I frequented Mings in the 80’s and it felt old then. 30 years later it is still there so something has to be said about longevity :) I have friends that still go and swear by it. I cant get over the old building simply looking run down, maybe i watch too much kitchen nightmares on TV. I think if you have eaten there for years its fine bc you are used to it. I think if you were new to town it would be hard to walk in unless you were very adventurous. Our Tuesday lunch group met there a while back, I somehow got to busy to meet that Tuesday :) It gets two for longevity but needs some major updating to attract new customers.

In the early 1990’s I ate at Ming’s at least once a week. Today, my father asked me to pickup Chinese for dinner since I was away all afternoon dealing with Smith Northview Hospital (that’s another bad review). I was so excited to order the same food I liked many, many years ago.
The outside of the building and parking lot looked awful and the inside looked very worn and rough, but I knew the food would more than make up for it, afterall, looks aren’t everything… but TASTE is. I desperately wanted something good to eat and I was sorely disappointed. The quality of the food was awful! I order the PuPu platter. Shrimp were overcooked, wontons had no cream cheese, and the chicken in tin foil was greasy thigh meat. I ate one spoonful of egg drop soup and I was done, absolutely no flavor and very watery. Ordered chicken and brocolli and it was like soup (not gravy or sauce) and there may have been 5 – 6 pieces of brocolli and god knows what else was floating around. Our dog ate the chicken and seem happy to get it. My father wanted Pepper Steak, again it was like watery soup with onion and green pepper. And with all of that they included about 1 cup of white rice on the side.
Yuck, yuck, yuck. I really wanted to like it but I was underwhelmed and disappointed. Sorry Ming!

Love to eat here. The place is really old but run by a great couple who serve awesome food. Our whole family enjoys eating here with friends.