Tuesday, November 08, 2005

UPDATE: Mall food court now open!

Columbia Mall's new "Dakota Cafe" food court opened late last week. I haven't had a chance to eat at Magic Chopstix yet (the only vendor that is open as of today). I'm impressed with how professionally done the food court looks. I was a bit scared when I heard that something called "Magic Chopstix" was coming. A non-chain, no-name Chinese food court vendor sounds like the kind of place that could end up looking a little tacky and a little too homemade for a brand new food court. Thankfully, I was once again proven wrong. Magic Chopstix looks very nice and the food looks yummy. Like I said, I haven't eaten there yet, but the prices seem fairly reasonable. You get to choose rice or lo mein and then either one, two, or three main dishes. There are three different prices based on how many main dishes you want. Even though I was at the mall at around 3 P.M. there was actually a line by the place. That should hopefully be a good sign for the food court. I've had my doubts, but I really would love to see the food court and, in turn, the mall be successful.

Subway, TCBY, and Great American Cookies should be open in the food court by Thanksgiving.

By the way, why are the chopsticks "magic" anyways? Do they turn into a fork so you can actually pick up your peanut chicken instead of fumbling around for hours and dropping half of the food on the floor?

2 comments:

elucidarian said...

Yeah, I ate a the "Magic Chopstix" last night... And, well, it wasn't awful.

I'll go to the food court again, but that Chinese place better step up from something other than bland (and their portions could be a tad more generous as well).

Anonymous said...

I can't be sure why this place is called Magic Chopstix, but a very popular chinese stripmall/airport chain is "Magic Dragon" so perhaps they borrowed the magic?

Chinese fastfood should always be generous with portions. The majority of what you're eating is carbs: noodles and rice. Both are dirt cheap. When you get chinese fastfood in Seattle, you get about 3 meals worth (for a 5'3" female) of food. A football player should be able to eat all of it, I think. I usually don't order it though, I'd rather get soup in a breadbowl or a nice French tart or something. If I am looking for a solid meal, I'd go for some turkey/mozarella on panini.