SPRINGVILLE — T-Bone Restaurant, housed in an old building way south in Springville, is likely a place you would drive right by except for two reasons: substantial word of mouth from long-time customers and the fact that on a Thursday night, you notice it is surrounded by so many vehicles, it's tough to find a parking spot.
The name suggests a steak house. The menu suggests otherwise.
Like a diner, T-Bone is loaded with options, including burgers, hot sandwiches, shrimp and, yes, sirloin, rib eye and T-bone dinners, but its specialty is Chinese cuisine, and it boasts dozens of choices.
The decor is distinctive. Plank walls stained with a reddish brown glaze identify the American portion of the restaurant. A montage of black and white Look magazine covers decorates one wall. A poster of iconic entertainers — Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, for example — graces another corner.
And if you you've ever wanted to know what to do with your old cardboard album covers from yesteryear, you might offer them to the owners. They have tacked an eclectic set of albums on the wall, including movie musicals such as "West Side Story" and singers such as Tennessee Ernie Ford. The adjacent room is splashed in bright red with gold accents, clearly the Chinese section.
My companion ordered the rib eye. Moist and marbled with fat, it was also marbled with flavor. It reminded me of the steaks I had as a child before restaurants served leaner, more bland, tougher and probably, healthier cuts of meat. A couple of weeks of grains, veggies and wild hickory nuts should counteract any clogging of the arteries. It's served with generous portions of mashed potatoes and sweet carrots.
The Chinese meal opened with the requisite egg drop soup, but this one was a bit of a surprise. It boasted an exceptionally tasty broth loaded with vegetables and noodles. Nice. The appetizers were fried and pretty standard, and the fried rice was dry. It was near closing time, and it looked like it had been warming until the rice lost any moistness.
The entree, however, was delicious. I selected a meal that offered a choice of entree. I tried to order the lemon chicken, but the server said, "No, no. If you're getting that dinner try the house special. It's usually a lot more expensive than the chicken, and it will cost you the same. It's a better deal."
So I tried the house special and was served a heaping concoction of meats and vegetables that served me well for three meals. Beef, pork, Char-sui (Chinese barbecue pork), chicken and shrimp were bathed in a delectable brown sauce that seemed to contain everything except the lemon chicken and the kitchen sink (I think, however, I may have detected a faucet in the concoction). In a word, it was delicious.
We returned — this time to try the lemon chicken — which had a distinctive lemon sauce and generous chunks of white chicken, and the Kung Pao, a spicy pleasure. The portions were enormous, and the price (around $7) reasonable. Even the rice was fluffy and flavorful.
It's fun to find a new favorite place.
T-BONE RESTAURANT
Rating: ***1/2
Address: 1695 S. State, Springville
Type: Chinese and American
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Saturday, 5 a.m.-11 p.m.
Average price: Lunch, $3.50-$5.50, dinner, $3.50-$13.99
Charlene Winters is a freelance writer, former food editor and food judge who — when she's not in the kitchen — works as the director of communications and marketing for BYU alumni. Contact her at: charlene_winters@byu.edu.