Lomography

Ma's Restaurant
written by strangelilgirl on January 11th, 2009 , 5 comments (1 vote)

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Hear the name “Ma’s” and you might conjure up the image of an old, large, greasy woman flipping pancakes and grumpily asking what you’d like to order, according to my boss; apparently the name didn’t entice many customers in the early years. But prejudices finally subsided and people were pleased to discover that Ma’s was actually a locally owned Chinese/Thai restaurant found right in the heart of downtown Central Point, and has now not only been thriving for the past 10+ years, but has been my place of employment for the last 3 of them.

Michelle Ma and her husband Hong opened up this restaurant with hopeful and unsure hearts in the late 90’s and have since become one of the public’s favorite Chinese restaurants here in the Rogue Valley. They serve daily lunch and dinner specials as well as typical “whichever letter for however many people” family meals.

Their small but exotic Thai menu includes (some of my favorites) a delicious yellow curry stir-fry, Thai fried rice topped with diced tomatoes and cashews, and Pad Thai. Where some restaurants may seem limited on variety, Ma’s has the only menu I’ve ever seen where I’ve almost wished it was shorter…there is so much to choose from! And the hook that got me: their endless vegetarian menu!!! They have vegetable versions of EVERY kind of dish (i.e. vegetable fried rice, vegetable chow mein, etc) but then they have a separate menu of all vegetable dishes including things like Ma Po tofu, Chinese Greens, Tofu Medley, and Black bean & garlic vegetables (yum!). They also have a few veggie appetizers including my favorite, Crispy tofu: strips of fried tofu piled on a plate with sweet & sour sauce and crushed peanuts. They also humor me by making ANYTHING on the menu in a vegetarian manner…their latest inventions are Kung Pao “chicken” and Teriyaki “chicken” (a.k.a. tofu).

This is a wonderful, laid back but hopping place to work at. I get to eat delicious food, I have a local boss who understands that I’m a student with a life and therefore adjusts my schedule to my liking, and most of all, the customers are the best bunch of people I’ve ever met. They truly make waitress feel like an important job.

This is a great place to eat, to visit with friends and to sip on hot oolong tea until your bladder hurts (or ideally just before that point). Almost everyone walks away feeling like they’ve fallen in love with Michelle and her kindness, quirkiness, and cute personality. So come meet her, fall in love, and mention my lomohome name for a 10% discount (seriously I’ve been there for 3 freaking years now, I got some say in things…)