We have a Two Brothers by our house but by far the best one is their West Central location. They actually have their own building instead of just a unit within a commercial strip like the one on Woodlawn.

The buffet price is somewhat steep, specially since the drink is not included in the price. Lunch cost both Brian and I $25 as opposed to about $20 or so if we would have dined at B & C Creations or Downtown BBQ. Of course, we went on a Sunday too. The Two Brothers buffet price is less expensive during the week. Not that much less, though.

Anyway, the salad bar is pretty extensive. They offered chicken salad, macaroni salad, coleslaw, potato salad, regular salad fixins and a plethora of other salad-type stuff. I sampled the chicken salad, macaroni salad and coleslaw. All three were very good.

For my actual meal, I had a some sort of chicken pasta caserole. I only had a bite of it. It didn’t appeal to me today for some reason.

I also had some pulled pork, chicken and hotlinks. I love hotlinks. These were perfect. They weren’t too spicy at all. The chicken was pretty good too. Then again, you leave a little skin on your chicken and I’m happy. I know it’s unhealthy, but I like eating the skin.

Anyway, the only thing that was disappointing was the pulled pork. It was dry and had no flavor. Definitely not as good as the pulled pork from Downtown BBQ. Although, it could just be me. You know how when you start to get full dishes don’t taste as good as they normally do. Otherwise, it wasn’t too bad. I’m just not much of a BBQ fan. I was really in the mood for some Filipino food. Maybe that’s why my taste buds were left longing for something more? P.S. I did want to say kudos to the fact that you can order from your car. As you can see in the photo above, they actually have drive up ordering stalls just like at Sonic!

Brian’s parents had mentioned Beijing Bistro, a new Chinese restaurant in the East side of Wichita, a couple of weeks ago. They said that if we ever wanted to check the place out to give them a call and they would join us for dinner. Brian and I don’t really have anything edible in the house so we decided to give his parents a call and have dinner there tonight. We figured that it would be a great excuse to do a restaurant review.

The location of the restaurant itself is unassuming. They don’t have a fancy building or anything. Instead they just occupy half the space of a commercial building next to Wally World. The other half is occupied by Play It Again Sports.

The inside decor kind of reminds me of a PF Chang’s minus the fancy statues, lighting and ceiling work. The booths provided ample space and the tables were quite sturdy.

The service was so-so. We could tell that the hostess who seated us was fairly new because she received instruction from a couple of other employees. She also plopped the menus in the middle of the table instead of placing them carefully in each place setting like you’re supposed to. A server who was waiting on another table came over, called her on it and rearranged the menus.

I didn’t plan to drink an alcoholic beverage but I took a moment to look over the drink menu. They offer a wide selection of domestic and imported beer as well as wines, spirits and mixed cocktails. They had a list of exotic drinks which I thought was pretty good.

The food menu wasn’t bad either. The menu offered your usual Chinese dishes and the prices were very reasonable. The one thing that caught my attention was a disclaimer on the last page that says “Substitutions are subject to additional charges.” The message practically screamed deviate from the menu and die. It’s something that I’m not used to because I’m pretty particular when it comes to the ingredients that I want to be included or excluded from certain dishes. I guess I am spoiled because I’m used to places that cater to consumer needs without question.

For instance, at PF Chang’s Brian and I will normally ask for the Mongolian beef and substitute eggplant for the green onions. We hate green onions and just pick them off anyway so they might as well cook them without. PF Chang’s Also encourages you to mix different meats so you can have a combination of beef and pork and chicken and whatever you want mixed in with your dish. You can pretty much create your own dishes. I think it’s great and I think restaurants shouldn’t discourage you from doing that.

I’m afraid that places that do not allow you to do this just have vats of pre-made food in their kitchen. That’s the reason why they cannot deviate from the menu selections (or at least penalize you for doing so).

Anyway, that aside, Brian and I decided to order some dumplings and lo mein. Portions at these restaurants are typically pretty large so we opted to share the triple delight lo mein that consists of beef, chicken and shrimp.

The pan fried dumplings were pretty cheap. You get six for $5.95 which isn’t a bad deal at all. The dumplings themselves weren’t spectacular. I like PF Chang’s dumplings better. They only give you four, but you get four big meaty ones. These dumplings were really doughy. The shell was thick and there wasn’t a lot of filling inside. [By the way, if you want a good deal on dumplings you need to go to Japan Express. You get about a dozen yummy steamed, deep fried or pan fried dumplings for a really low price.]

The lo mein, on the other hand, was outstanding. There were large pieces of chicken and beef. The vegetables were easy to pick off. The sauce was delicious. The dish which was supposed to included shrimp only consisted of about three pieces. They were jumbo shrimp but I couldn’t help but be disappointed that there weren’t any more in there. Despite the scarcity of the shrimp, the lo mein was one of the best I’d ever had. It totally made up for the so-so dumplings.

At the end of our meal, Brian and I were considered some chocolate cake for dessert. There was a three layer cake that was pictured on the menu and I was curious about it. However, when we asked to see the menu for some dessert our server said they didn’t have a dessert menu because their dessert offerings vary. He mentioned cheesecake and chocolate mousse. Brian got a little excited to hear there was chocolate mousse, but the server who was not very confident about what they had said he would check and then let us know what was available.

When he came back he said they were out of dessert. It was like five o’clock in the afternoon. The evening had barely begun. How can you be out of dessert already? That was another strike against them.

In the end the fact that there was no dessert, mediocre service and no substitutions outweighed all the pluses of the nice, private ambiance, cheap prices (our bill was only $14.75 which got rounded to $18.00 after the tip; you can’t eat that cheap anywhere else; at least not at a nice sit-down-restaurant type of place, anyway) and good lo mein offered. Overall I give the place three out of five stars which means I probably won’t avoid the place but I won’t go out of my way to eat there either.