Yen Ching

The other day I went to a soccer game at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. But instead of eating the overpriced stadium food, I searched around for something else nearby for lunch and I took my chances with a place called Yen Ching in Plainville.

If you have a general idea of Massachusetts geography, Gillette Stadium is located just north of the southern intersection of I-95 (The inner ring highway around Boston) and I-495 (the outer ring highway around Boston.)
Yen Ching is just south of that intersection. Basically you get off Exit 14 on 495 going north on Route 1 to get to Gillette, you get off Exit 14 going south on Route 1 and turn onto Taunton Street to get to Yen Ching, and if you don't get off Exit 14, you'll hit 95 in about a minute.

But, unlike the stadium, people are not likely to head hundreds of miles to Yen Ching. Looking at the run down shopping plaza it's located in, I had some compunction that the food here would be any good, but appearances can be decieving.

I got there for the lunch buffet, and the best way to describe it is as a good value for what you get. This is definitely not superlative Chinese-American food. The wait staff is ok, but they're not great either. The food was appetizing, but there was not a great variety and I'd think there would be fresher food there given it was a buffet. The place also passed the General Tso's test for the most part -- no stringiness in the meat. The picture above was the first trip to the buffet, the best part of it I had that day was the Schezuan Beef, but as I said earlier, it wasn't anything special.

So, there you go. If you want some cheap Chinese food before you go see the Patriots or Revolution, Yen Ching works.