I can has Happiness.

It should be painfully obvious (and probably a little annoying) that I am perfectly capable of bitching about something at the drop of a hat. But, I don't want everybody to think that I'm some sad and grumpy douche-bag with no happiness gene floating in my somewhat cloudy gene pool.

I found something that honestly surprised me.

See I have this philosophy, it's a complete and total rip-off of a preparedness axiom; "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst". My own twist on it is that as long as I fully expect somebody to do their absolute best to screw shit up then I'm not disappointed. I am RARELY disappointed. So, my expectations are low. When something good happens, I am genuinely pleased. This week, I was very pleased about one of life's simple pleasures.

Food.

I was in Bismarck, North Dakota this week for a training course. Bismarck is not exactly a culinary Mecca, so imagine my surprise when I found a restaurant that had honestly GREAT food. I wasn't expecting much (see above), I'm a little jaded. Having grown up in Houston I got used to eating really good food prepared in a competitive environment. And, for the most part, when you take a look at a place you have certain expectations. You might think the food will be good, just not great. This place was truly great.

The restaurant I'm speaking of is the China Star: Mongolian Stir Fry. It's a Chinese-American Buffet. That's no shit, I don't think they have a menu. You walk in the front doors and immediately meet the cashier and see a little hand-written sign: Please Pay First. Simple.

$7.98 (including tax) gets you access to the classic "All You Can Eat" buffet. Now, what I expected was the standard single table, 20 or so dish arrangement. What I got was 4 huge buffet tables loaded down with some really good looking food. With a lot of buffet's the food looks like it's been sitting out there for awhile. Not this stuff. It wasn't your standard issue buffet fare, the "we just knocked this out of a frozen box and zapped it" shit that I usually see. Nope, somebody made this stuff fresh and with skill.

The first lunch I had there was on Wednesday, I grabbed the usual standards, chicken fried rice, peppered steak, General Tsoas Chicken and something called simply "smoked chicken".

I love Chinese food. It's damn near the perfect consumable and the smoked chicken was fuckin' crazy good. It had a mellow flavor to it. A light seasoned breading (not greasy) and the chicken beneath was perfectly cooked. Well cooked for a salmonella-free experience but not dry. Anybody who regularly attempts to make chicken knows how hard that is.

Long of short. Everything that I tried over the next three days lunch breaks was awesome. The smoked chicken was the SAME everyday and perfect. The BBQ pork spare ribs weren't little bone in short ribs, they were full length stripped ribs and were just as perfect as you could imagine. It was all good enough to be from the menu of any of the high end Chinese Restaurants I have ever eaten at but from a buffet.

They also ran the place with an efficiency that just doesn't exist in reality The lady that refilled the dishes would come out, check the tables and if there was anything that needed to be replaced she would grab a microphone from the wall nearby and announce it to the kitchen. Cool.

As with a lot of other Mongolian style places there was a huge stir-fry table in the middle with a cold-stock buffet arranged around it. There were tons of fresh (and I mean really fresh) ingredients that were chilled on ice. You picked the ingredients, followed the directions to make a sauce and then handed the works to the nice man with then spatula. He cooked it and then served it to you.

If you ever fall off of the known world and for some reason land in Bismarck, (before you commit suicide) eat at this restaurant. You will NOT be disappointed.

I was, but in a good way.