Photo by Laurie Skrivan (Post-Dispatch)
Chef Ma's Chinese Gourmet Restaurant
Chef Ma’s Chinese Gourmet Restaurant is an ambitious name for a very small restaurant (an old Taco Bell, in fact), but in spite of the cozy confines, the eponymous chef Ying Jing Ma serves an impressive array of Chinese dishes from several different regional traditions: Singapore-style street noodles; the famed chicken rice from Hainan province; a ferociously spicy Szechuan beef stew. Chef Ma’s also serves the only fried salt-and-pepper calamari that rivals the version at Mai Lee. (The generous jalapeño garnish gives Ma’s version a lasting punch.) Chef Ma’s does feature a menu of familiar Americanized Chinese dishes. Use it to rope your less-curious friends into coming here, and then make them try the good stuff.
Hours: Lunch and dinner daily
Opened: 2015
Must order: Fried squid ($8.95)