A Happy Return

I have always had a personal rule about Chinese Food places. If they have pictures of the food, they should be avoided. This goes along with some other rules, like Chinese Restaurants in shopping plazas tend to be marginal. These two rules kept me from trying Tasty in Shadyside for the first several years of its existence. This was my loss, because for the next several years, Tasty was the staple Chinese place near CMU in Pittsburgh. The dish that hooked me was the Scrambled Eggs and Roast Pork. This is the sort of thing my mom used to make at home, but which I had never seen in a restaurant. The rest of the menu was a great mix of Catonese dishes, good vegetables, noodles, seafood, lunch boxes and so on. They also had a standard American Chinese gloppy food menu, but I never ordered from it.

Then a year and a half ago Carol, the owner sold out and the place came under new management. Rose Tea opened at about the same time, so I had not been back to Tasty for a long time.

I am now happy to report that Carol and her food pictures are back. The new place is in Squirrel Hill and is called Ka Mei. It’s where the freakish kosher Chinese Food and Shawarma place used to be. All in all, this is a good change.

The place serves the same home style Cantonese food as Tasty did. They’ve added a few new things, like Congee (rice porridge) and a wider assortment of vegetables. I was happy to become requainted with my eggs and pork. I had not realized that I had missed the dish so much. Squirrel Hill is now in the great position of having two distinct regional Chinese places. This is good news indeed.

Oh, the new place has the American menu too… avoid it.