Address: 32 Iskar St.,  Telephone: 983 2404

On a rainy evening our party of four decided to have dinner in this Chinese place on Iskar street called Gwey Bin Low. I hopped out the car, trying to avoid the puddles that decorate the holes in the streets when it rains. The restaurant looked like your typical Bulgarian Chinese restaurant, white tiled floors, red lanterns and tables covered with plastic tablecloths. But it was full, in every sense of the word. The tables were put so close together that you had to carefully manoeuvre your chairs just to be able to take a seat. But after some logistics we managed to worm our way onto our chairs.
The waitress showed up with the menus. She didn't greet us, in fact she hardly even looked at us. She basically just plunked the menus on the table, leaving us to fend for ourselves. While others were quite shocked or even offended by the waitress's behaviour, I was very amused. It reminded me of the many restaurants I have visited in Chinatown in Amsterdam. Once a friend of mine took me to a very obscure looking place, fried Peking Ducks lifeless hanging in the window and eel anxiously sliding past each other in a very small aquarium. The clientele was mainly Chinese. And the food was supposed to be the best in town. In any case, I had a similar reaction to my Bulgarian friends when our waiter arrived. He was rude. There is no other word that would describe this man more accurately. My friend laughed and told me this was the genuine Chinese attitude towards Dutch people. He and his family have been visiting this restaurant for over 25 years. This particular waiter had been there since that time. And he told me that he made a bet with himself. He will continue to come to this restaurant until he manages to make the man smile. So far, he did everything possible to provoke a slight curling of the lips. But without results. So, at least once a month he visits the restaurant to take the waiter's abuse. But he enjoys it I am sure.
I can say that this tale and the experiences I had in other hard core Chinese restaurants have actually predisposed me to suffer this nuisance when one wants to enjoy a good meal. With this in the back of my head, I was ignoring the waitress best as possible and eagerly awaiting what yummy stuff she would bring. We ordered some chicken and vegetables (6.50 leva), a salad of bean sprouts, a salad of Chinese cabbage, a salad of seaweed, some steamed dumplings (3.60 leva), beef in a sweet and sour sauce (6.50 leva), Chinese bread, steamed and fried rice and some pork in a red marinade (5.20 leva). The salads all tasted the same, they were drowned in vinegar topped with a lot of chopped garlic and a little chilly. The bean sprouts came obviously out of a tin, very disappointing. The dumplings were actually ok. They were stuffed with beef and ground veggies. They tasted fresh and they were soft and juicy. I stole some chicken from my neighbours. It was ok, but not exceptional in any way. The chicken was soft and the vegetables crunchy, but somehow I am always sceptical of that indefinable see through sauce. The fried rice was covered in too much oil for my taste and apart from that it was quite boring. It was a big white mountain with here and there a hint of a pea or carrot peeping out. (But this seems to be the norm in Bulgaria.) My pork was very tasty, were it not a little dry. All in all we had an ok dinner, but not exceptional in any way. The venue was noisy and very busy, which would be charming if the food was great. But Gwey Bin Low is like your average Chinese restaurant that serves ok food. We paid our bill, which came to 40.40 leva for four people.