Though I don't smoke, my body (mostly my mind) has taken quite a beating as a result of my lifelong addiction to this relatively inexpensive chinese restaurant. While I can comment on the other Ollies restaurants around the city, 116th and bway and 68th and bway to name a few, my focus for this review is on the ollies on 84th street and broadway. While Chinese restaurants have a rep for loud waitresses who sometimes have a hard time taking your order, Ollies takes the cake. The people who take orders over the phone are efficient to say the least but they also make the soup Nazi from Seinfeld look like more like that football player's mother feeding entire nfl team cambell's soup on tv. While most who dare call them frequently have the transaction down to a science, it is inevitable that they will every so often not hear or understand a question or part of an order and then start screaming into the phone as if you are holding them up for something more important. Nevertheless, I'd recommend this option as opposed to entering the place itself. No matter how crowded or empty Ollies is, the wait staff will impatiently await your order and then bus your plates away as if they were expecting 10 busloads of tourists at any moment. The only irony is that they disappear just when you want to pay the bill. While this sounds like some major conspiracy theory, it happens every time. The food is better than your average chinese-american cuisine and they have started expanding their menu a bit more and also cart around dim sum all day. Their lunch menus are cheap and filling and delivery time is supersonic. Proceed but with caution and great patience. A true New York experience.
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