Overseas China Restaurant

My favorite Chinese restaurant by far. While I'll acknowledge as some of the reviews have noted that things can be a bit salty, there is a great variety of food and it always seems very fresh. The service is great too - if you go here say hi to 'Jenni'.

My mom owns a vacation house here, and I'm vegetarian. So when I'm visiting, especially in the off-season, it's difficult to find a local restaurant that offers more than salads or side dishes (that isn't Subway, Taco Bell, or Pizza Hut). Most of the local cuisine is either steak, burgers, or fish, and what isn't, is deep-fried. I didn't feel like iceberg-lettuce salads, French fries, fried mozzarella, fried mushrooms, pizza, or diner food, so we tried this place.

It has a standard Chinese menu for the American palette, but it seems like everyone ends up getting the buffet option, which is really inexpensive...almost crazy inexpensive, like $8, when it could easily gone for more with the selection they have (heavy on chicken options--and there's a [delicious, according to Mom] Satay chicken dish that isn't on the a la carte menu). I ordered veggie egg foo young--spicy, please--off the menu, and when it arrived, it could have easily fed three people, and ended up costing less than the buffet. I hope they either alter their portion sizes or modify the prices upward (or do a half / full order thing) so that they stick around for the next time I'm in town.

The ambiance is decent (Chinese chandeliers as opposed to those nasty fluorescent lights you constantly run across south of 35th St. in Chicago), everything is clean, and soda refills are free and immediate. They only have Chinese beer--no wine, though.

The owner / hostess is very friendly, and struck up a conversation about my mom's Kindle and checked in on us and made small talk, at the pace of a Southern, home-style, no-rush restaurant kind of place. I always have to mentally remind myself to slow down my conversation pace when I'm here, even though I'm only two hours from home.

A little boy was having his birthday dinner and after they sang Happy Birthday to him, another employee let him choose a gift from the hostess' counter and he was clearly excited about the new little wood elephant friend he chose, and the other kids in attendance decided on the spot that they would like their own birthday dinners there. It was pretty adorable.

Pretty standard small town Chinese buffet.  When we first went up, it was bare bones, but the manager explained they just had 8 buffets to go, which we had seen.  The remaining food was extremely salty.  They did restock quickly and
The salt level was much lower in the new stuff.  
Overall not bad, and would return if we were in town and
In the
Mood for Chinese.