Tired of pondering where and what to eat?
For $100, a Red Deer restaurant will simplify these decisions for a week.
V.V. Chinese Express opened for business on Thursday, and its menu extends beyond appetizers, soups and entrees. Customers can plunk down $100 and get a meal every day of the week, including wonton soup, a spring roll and rice. For $350, they can extend such daily dining to a month.
Owner Vivian Jin hopes this offer will help distinguish her restaurant. Similarly, she decided to operate from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m., seven days a week, to capture the late-night trade that many other restaurants miss out on.
“It’s very competitive,” said Jin of the local dining industry. “Like with the Chinese restaurants, there are so many — I think more than 20 — so you have to be unique.”
Located at 6011 54th Ave., in the same strip mall as Cheers Pub and Burger Boy, V.V. Chinese Express can seat 20 diners and will also prepare food for take-out. Its premises were previously occupied by Wonton House, and before that Yan’s Kitchen.
Jin, who is from Vancouver, said the size and suitability of the space helped convince her to choose Red Deer as her market.
In Vancouver, she added, it would be very difficult for a Western-style Chinese restaurant to compete.
For local diners with a taste for authentic Chinese cuisine, V.V. Chinese Express will prepare such food with 24 hours notice. Jin stressed that everything served at her restaurant is prepared fresh the same day.
hrichards@www.reddeeradvocate.com