Some meals are about the food. Others are about the feeling you get the second you walk through the door.
But every once in a while, a meal is about something else entirely: going back. Not just to a restaurant, but to a version of your life that still lives in the smell of the place, the look of the dining room, and the way the menu feels in your hands.
Most of us have that spot — the one we went to with family, or after school, or on special occasions. The kind of restaurant that wasn’t “trendy,” but felt permanent. And when you return decades later, you’re not really chasing the exact same food. You’re chasing the memory of how it felt to be there.
That’s what this dinner was for my wife, Sharon.
We made a deliberate pilgrimage to Staten Island to eat at a place from her past — Jade Island — one of those increasingly rare survivors that still does the whole “going out for Chinese food” experience the way it used to be done: a big dining room, a big menu, big portions, and decor that commits to the bit.
A Staten Island detour
And while we visit New York City pretty often, this wasn’t the kind of “oh, we’ll just pop over there” side trip.
Staten Island looks close on a map, but getting to this restaurant required commitment — time, planning, and more than one mode of transportation. It wasn’t a straight shot. It was the kind of mini-journey where each transfer feels like you’re earning the right to arrive.
Which, honestly, made it even better. The longer it took to get there, the more it felt like we weren’t just going to dinner… we were heading back to somewhere Sharon hadn’t visited in a long time.
Visiting Jade Island
When we arrived, it felt like stepping back into a memory.
It starts before you even walk in. The sign outside still has that unmistakable old-school “Chinese restaurant” look. And even though the place is tucked into a strip mall next to a Target (the most 2025 sentence possible. Sharon says that back in the day, it used to be a K-Mart, with a Photomat hut in the parking lot), Jade Island still manages to look like itself—not a generic storefront, not a modern “concept,” but a restaurant with a distinct personality.
Then you step into the dining room, and that’s when it really hits. The room still looks mostly the same as it did decades ago. The lighting, the decor, the whole vibe… it doesn’t feel like a place that was redesigned to chase trends. It feels like a place that stayed put while the rest of the world changed around it.
The meal (aka: dinner the way it used to be)
And then came the best kind of confirmation that we were fully in throwback territory: the food.
We started with wonton soup—the kind of opening act that immediately makes you feel like you’re back in another era, before everything was “small plates” and “shareables.” This was just classic, comforting, and exactly what it’s supposed to be.
Next up: egg rolls. And I have to ask… are you Team Dry, or do you need the sweet-and-sour sauce?
For the main event, we went all in on the classics: ribs and shrimp with lobster sauce, plus fried rice. It was the kind of order that feels like it came straight from a family dinner table in the ’80s or ’90s—generous portions, familiar flavors, and absolutely no concern for whether two people can realistically finish it.
Even the tea came in a pot that looked like it’s seen some things over the years — and had the scratches to prove it.
And of course, it was way too much food for two people, which is also part of the charm. Old-school Chinese restaurants don’t do “just enough.” They do abundance.
So we did what any sensible travelers would do: we got the to-go bags, hauled them back to the hotel, and then managed to package everything well enough to bring it home with us on the plane. Because some leftovers aren’t just leftovers—they’re an encore. A second dinner back at home that gets to be cherished all over again.
Final thought
Yes, it’s a little ridiculous when you say it out loud: we took multiple trains, rode the Staten Island Ferry, and then grabbed an Uber… just to get Chinese food.
But it wasn’t really “just” Chinese food.
Sure, we don’t have many places like this near us in Florida, and that alone made the trip feel worth it. But the bigger reason is that meals like this are a different kind of travel experience—one that doesn’t come with a reservation link or a viral TikTok. It’s about revisiting something familiar, supporting a place that’s survived for decades, and getting to sit inside a time capsule for an hour or two.
And honestly? I’m glad we did it. Not every memorable New York meal has to involve a trendy spot in Manhattan and a three-week wait for a table. Sometimes the most meaningful “destination dining” is the quiet kind—the place from your past that’s still standing, still serving, still doing it the old way.
Because if we don’t keep showing up for these local, old-school restaurants, they don’t get replaced by another version of themselves. They just disappear.
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