Byron C.
Yelp
People on Reddit did a tournament with NCAA-style brackets to determine the best Chinese food restaurant in St. Louis, and Corner 17 came in first. Is there a higher honor that can possibly be bestowed upon a Chinese restaurant?
Situated on a stretch of the U City Loop that's been negatively impacted by the Loop Trolley and construction of an apartment complex for Wash U people who are too good to live in the dorms, Corner 17 is not sweating it. At 4:30-ish on a Sunday afternoon, there was a 45-minute wait. Who even eats at that hour, the elderly?
As I patiently waited on the sidewalk outside, roughly 10 or 15 people walked in, were told that there was--at that point--an hour and twenty minute wait--and were like, Eff that noise, Jack! This is St. Louis. People have things to do and people to meet. If necessary, they'll eat at El Maguey.
Inside is decidedly casual and maybe a little bit cramped. if the chairs were more comfy, people might linger and the wait would be even longer. The area near the front door, where you order weird beverages and pick up delivery orders for your rideshare job, calls to mind the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Given the unique nature of the aforementioned beverages, you'd think the food menu might skew to the unfamiliar, but there wasn't anything that struck me as especially odd or potentially illegal. If you wanted to, you could treat this place as an elevated, inconvenient Panda Express. They carry Shrimp Fried Rice, Crab Rangoon, General Tso's Chicken, etc.
In the interest of not overthinking things, I went with the Stir-Fried Noodles with Pork. I also had, as appetizers, the Beef Egg Rolls, the Fried Chicken Shumai and the Wontons with Chili Oil, and for my requisite unique beverage, the Matcha Red Bean Lava. I went all out. And keep in mind, this was a day that began with a Caramel Frappe, elsewhere--a rare two-frozen-beverage day for your boy.
The Egg Rolls and the Shumai were just whatever. If another restaurant sold them, they'd be given an award by whatever remains of the local media, but this is Corner 17. The Wontons with Chili Oil were transcendent. Incredibly flavorful, with a tender and yet substantive wrapper coated in a thin layer of subtly flagrant oil. You wish they didn't slide down your throat so quickly, so you could savor them that much longer. No Diddy.
Of the stir-fried noodles, the pork seemed like it might be the most flavorful. With all due respect to the Honorable Minister. There was also a Sichuan version, with a spicy sauce, that I seriously considered, but the photo of it made it seem like it might be more cabbage-forward than I required.
The noodles immediately called to mind a lo mein lunch special I used to get at a place around the corner from my parents' house back in the mid '00s, one of my favorite things to eat at the time. Whereas that was processed and cloying, and yet deeply satisfying, this had a real refinement to it. The hand-pulled noodles, which I watched the guy pull while I waited (ayo!), were richly flavored and perfectly al dente. I felt like a bit of a savage, like someone who orders a well-done steak, twirling them around on my fork to the point where they'd hardly fit in my mouth and then stuffing my face with them, but it was worth.
Oh, and the drink. "Red bean," in this case, was not figurative or symbolic. There were actual red beans in this, like you might get at a Popeyes. Whose idea was this? They were sweetened, and delicious, but inexplicable nonetheless. Otherwise, this wasn't altogether different from something you'd get at a Starbucks and post on social media to stunt on other members of the community.
I've yet to eat at every Chinese food restaurant in the area, and I don't know that anyone should (with all due respect), but I don't have a problem believing that Corner 17 is the absolute best. I enjoyed everything that I got, and I'd be willing to wait even longer than I did, depending on what I had to do that day.
