Tiger Bowl - A Family Affair
On March 20, 2020, we rushed over to Tiger Bowl upon news of them having to shut their doors indefinitely. We stocked our freezer with 12 orders of frozen dumplings and their magic brown sauce. Panicked to not have their food while home quarantine, we this was our DIY attempt to ride out the pandemic.
It’s hard to believe it could have taken me so long to write about my family’s favorite, or most frequented, restaurant. In our house, not a week goes by that we don’t oder in from Tiger Bowl Chinese restaurant in Westport. And often, as embarrassing as it is to admit, it can be multiple times a week, especially when my brother is home from college.
We’ve been going to Tiger Bowl restaurant since I was a young child. It is among the most delicious Chinese food in the area. Their menu is exactly what you would imagine at an American-Chinese restaurant - including all those Chinese dishes that were created in America like General Tso’s Chicken, Crab Rangoon and Orange Chicken (important trivia alert: orange chicken was created by a chef at Panda Express - who knew?). I recently learned something else from the Chicago Tribune: egg rolls were adapted from the traditional spring roll to be made more appealing to Americans by deep frying them - because we Americans love all things deep fried.
My family never sways from our standard order - EVER. It’s chicken and broccoli and add water chestnuts, dumplings (in true American fashion I guess, only order the fried ones, ssshhh) and then possibly either the house lo main or the house fried rice. My mom, trying to get more veggies into us, always gets the mu shu vegetables which is shredded cabbage stir fried with julienned vegetables. The wraps are delicious especially when you slather them with the sweet, yet slightly tart, plum sauce. She also orders the Chicken with mixed vegetables in that same vain attempt. The kids in this house are very loyal to chicken with broccoli. Broccoli is one vegetable that isn’t scary.
On March 13, 2020, when Ryan drove to Westport to spend his spring break vacation, this was his first stop before arriving home. Who knew it would be the last time he would be able to “dine-in” at his favorite restaurant.
My brother is the true shepherd of the Chinese food frenzy that goes on in my house. He is off in college now, and it’s not unusual for him to order take-out Chinese food three times a week. His local take-out place knows him well. We joke that he has single-handedly kept their business running even through the tough times of the pandemic. But as often as he gets it at school, the minute he comes home, the first thing he requests is Tiger Bowl.
My mom’s favorite story about my brother depicts best how our family feels about Tiger Bowl. When Ryan was younger, probably 7 years old, they were eating in the somewhat narrow, corridor shaped Tiger Bowl dining room (sounds like a such a foreign concept to eat out these days) and he turned to her and said, “Mom, do you think I can have my wedding here one day?” She replied, “That would make a lot of sense.”
