There’s a little yellow building in Ypsilanti that has become my favorite place to eat with excellent food, one of those little “mom and pop” places that you would probably not visit without a recommendation. It’s not just my favorite place but at least two of my kids call it their favorite too. The building is quite old and has been a restaurant for years though it operated under a different name when I was a kid living in Ypsilanti. Actually for a while it was owned by a family I knew but I only visited a couple times never really getting into the food much just more of a visit for us to tease our friend working there. We all grew up and I took a course that pulled me away from things, friends, those places and so no.
Forward many years later, perhaps 25, and a friend mentioned this little restaurant in Ypsilanti that serves really good Chinese food but that’s small and really not fancy inside. His description was something like, “it’s so small you would easily drive past were it not painted bright yellow.” Indeed this building is merely a speck squeezed in between larger red brick and stone businesses so without that yellow paint you really wouldn’t even notice it.The sign out front is faded and parking down a tight alley is limited giving it even more of a mysterious look. After talking about the history of the restaurant and telling my friend I knew the place but had not been there in years I decided to give it a try and to take my family or at least any one of them that would go with me.
The first visit didn’t leave a good impression really and in fact I know at least some of us didn’t care for it at all. I knew next time I saw my friend Dean I would ask him what his comparison is because honestly the food was nothing special. Telling him about it he asked me what I got and I told him the typical American Chinese food you get anywhere, sweet and sour deep fried stuff. That was the problem he said, “they do really really good traditional food but not so much the American variety.” So I decided to try again but this time he would go too so as to show me the way and I am glad I did, wow really good. So I could go on and on about the place but that’s not really why I decided to write this blog.
After that second visit I knew I would be a regular and would try to get my family to go too which didn’t go as planned but my boys love the place and we go there often, just last night actually. The more we went the more we looked forward to it and it became kind of our thing to do. Go to Hidden Dragon, hit up the food co-op for goodies and then the park for a walk. This is one of the things we do together and I always look forward to it picturing they will one day do the same even at the same places while telling their kids how dad always took them here. Who knows if that will happen but I like to think it will. Whatever the future holds I know I will have these memories forever and will continue to do my best making more memories with those I love and for that I consider myself a lucky man.
The Mystery Meat 