Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Do you like Chinese food? I haven’t met many truckers who don’t. I try to find a Chinese buffet on the road whenever I can. I have no interest in a “traditional” Chinese restaurant with no buffet. I like the variety that the buffet offers. I never eat the “Chinese” food at a Flying J. That would just be wrong. They do offer a decent juicy egg roll but that it as far as it goes as far as anything resembling Chinese food at any truck stop. As far as I’m concerned, if you want “real” Chinese food, you just “gotta” go to a “real” Chinese restaurant.

I was supposed to take a load from Chicago to Laredo and then head home to Florida. Down in Laredo there is a mega-buffet Chinese place called Lin’s. I always try to go there when I have the time. Well, that fell through and I ended up driving a whopping 325 miles from Summit IL to Washington MO with roofing. I then wasted a day looking at the upcoming three day weekend. Good opportunity to get some serious miles on the paycheck when other drivers are home. Not “gonna” happen. 500 miles from Columbia MO to N. Mankato MN (???) with 3 1/2 days to get there. I told the skeleton crew at operations: “It’s going to be tight.”  A little trucker humor. They didn’t seems to appreciate it. Tough. They get to do home, I don’t.

Ok. US 63 Moberly, MO. I don’t think I’ve ever been here before. Park the truck at the Shell’s gas station – there are about 25 spaces. Opposite is a Wal-Mart Supercenter. A Golden Corral across the street. And behind me – the China Garden. This is a truckers paradise. So much food so much darn time to eat it since I have 3 1/2 days to drive 500 miles. I walk the 50 yards over there. No one inside. Smells great. The “hostess” is hot. So is the food. Some more trucker humor. By the time I’m on my second plate and third diet Pepsi the place is packed. Middle-class working folks. My “kinda” crowd.  All the food is being cooked by Mexicans. Strangely there is Scottish bag pipe music playing from speakers in the ceiling. And crab legs are cracking everywhere. This is what being OTR (over the road) is all about.

There is good food everywhere outside and away from the “typical” truck stops. The Tiger Truck Stop/Restaurant in Grosse Tete, LA is such a place. They make a killer fried chicken. My GPS is taking me on roads less traveled. It has pointed me in the direction of some delicious Chinese places off the boring interstates – such as this one in Moberly, MO. And because this is Friday, it was seafood “special”: night – $10.99 for all kinds of crab, shrimp, etc. Some fish I don’t know the name of. My fav dishes were the stuffed mushrooms over steamed white rice and the crab Rangoon. Yummy.

Photo credits are: http://chinainbombay.com/imgupload/CrabRangoon.jpg, http://www.impactlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/chinese-buffet.jpg, http://asia.elliottback.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/10-Zhang-Jingchu.jpg, http://www.linsrestaurant.com/