City Central Palace

*Restaurant is now closed*

Have you ever looked at the outside of a restaurant and had the reaction - "There is no #$)*)# way I'm going to eat there!!!" You know, a place that looks so sketchy, that it'd send you to the first McD's you see? Well, one particular place is the Central City Palace. I've driven by this place a few times and dismissed it in my subconsciousness. By merely looking at it, you'd have a hard time figuring out what the heck it was. Chinese? Indian? Thai? American? Japanese? What if I told you all of them? Alright, if you are still reading this, I guess you're not the type who would run away screaming. Yah, with all of the types of cuisines listed, at first glance, it doesn't look promising. When we walked into the place, it didn't look all that promising either. Resembling a place from the 70's, it really had a retro feel except for the big screen LCD. Apparently, the place has open mic and there are bands who perform here.

As for the food, the menu is an eclectic mix of different Asian cuisines mixed in with burgers and pasta. Juan Valdez (no, not really the coffee guy) played it safe and went for their burger. In all honesty, it was a pretty good burger. The large homemade patty was moist and the bun soft. The homemade fries were not too bad either; although they could've been crispier. In the category of "what the heck was I thinking?", I ordered a Pad Thai. Yup, something that even Thai restaurants may not do right, I picked it out from many other "safer" dishes. And predictably, it was not even close to being Pad Thai. Now, if they just called it fried rice noodles with chicken and shrimp, it would've been more accurate. So it was a lousy Pad Thai since it had very little tamarind flavour and no spice whatsoever. The noodles were a bit soft as well. Now, with that being said, if I looked at it as just fried rice noodles, it was actually not bad. The shrimp was cooked perfectly and there was quite a bit of chicken in it. So by another name, this was alright.

But of course, I really shouldn't be too picky. It is not a place that is advertising its authenticity. It's a diner of some sorts that serves large portions of everything at a very reasonable price. The owner is a very nice lady who seems to care and will take care of you while you're there. So, if you want to get full for cheap, this is your place.

The Good:
- It's cheap
- Big portions
- Friendly owner

The Bad:
- You must have reasonable expectations
- Interesting decor