Since today is our Community Give Back night with Waterlin Restaurant (and they are still mainly doing take out) I wanted to share some memories of my family's favorite take out spots growing up. While you know that The Right Relief Inc aims to provide home-cooked meal Relief, there is something about delicious take out. My family did not do it often because my Dad enjoyed cooking (and was great at it) but there are just some days/nights where Relief actually comes from the ease of swinging into your favorite restaurant and leaving with an already made meal ready to enjoy in the comfort of your own home. The best of both worlds. We would often do this on nights when we had later sports practices/meets/games.
My Dad was a big Chinese food lover. He had a big wok and loved cooking up a big stir fry with veggies from our summer garden. He made the most delicious fried rice with extra scrambled eggs. He was also famous for making egg rolls on New Year's Eve. This was a whole day process complete with the egg roll wrappers, homemade filing and my mom on assembly. They made a ton and froze a bunch for the year. I have also heard that my Grandpa Gary (his Dad) was quite the Chinese food chef too.
Our favorite place to go out for dinner as a family was the Chinese Buffet in Menominee, Michigan (only about 20 minutes from our house in Peshtigo, WI). This place deserves it's own blog post :) I don't think they did take out and that was fine because there was an even more delicious take out Chinese place also in Menominee (I know Michigan doesn't seem like the Chinese food capital of the world!): No. 1 Chinese Restaurant. That is the actual name! Their take out bags had a big yellow smiley face of course!
My Dad, being the frugal guy he was, would order at lunch time (to get the lunch price) and pick it up after work mid afternoon. Then he'd bring it home and save it in the fridge for dinner. He absolutely loved hot and sour soup and this is one dish he did not attempt to make at least that I ever saw. It is tricky! He would get two for him and my mom and my sister and I got the wanton soup. My Dad taught me everything I know about the power of the microwave and we obviously needed to take full advantage of its powers for reheating take out Chinese. He loved his food HOT! Radioactive as Kyle would say. HOT is even in the name of his favorite soup. He would enjoy the soup course scalding hot first, and then dish up the entrees. He liked all of it... shrimp stir fry, beef and broccoli, mushu pork with the little wrappers and any chicken dish. One of his favorites was Generals Tso's because of the heat! I have mentioned before that he also loved leftovers and Chinese take out especially from No.1 was an all time favorite left over that we all fought over!
The only other place we ever ordered from was Brother's 3 Pizza in Marinette, WI. They had "par baked" pizza that was partially cooked and then you picked it up to finish cooking at home. This is still the only place I know that does this. It somehow makes the crust extra crispy and delicious. They had all kinds of veggie toppings that my parents loved. I to this day am still a pepperoni/sausage only person. They put pepperonis under the cheese (inspiration for my Dad's homemade pizza!) and big slices of tomatoes on top that my Dad also loved. The cheese was crazy...just a ton and so melty! If there were leftovers this was probably tied with the Chinese leftovers for our family's favorite.
So, I hope you enjoy some Relief tonight with take out from Waterlin! I am excited to try it and NOT cook as it just keeps getting harder the more pregnant I get :)
