I’ve been waiting for years. No decades. Yes decades. For what? An authentic Chinese restaurant to enter Chattanooga’s dining scene. We’ve had some good ones — and still do. But it seems like they all offer more or less the same thing. Not so with Ox2. You can tell it’s offering something that Chattanooga has waited for just by looking at the line that usually extends out the door at the height of the lunch and dinner hours.
I’m showing my age, but I do faintly remember the first Chinese restaurant opening in Chattanooga. It was on 10th Street, and my father, a native of China, couldn’t have been happier. You’d think it was Christmas Day, and he was still a boy. That was the level of excitement I witnessed as he placed his order in Chinese, his native language and one he hadn’t used in decades, but, like riding a bike, it all came back to him. Though he admitted that it wasn’t as authentic as the food he had in China, it was still a tasty attempt.
(READ MORE: Restaurant Scene: Chinese restaurant Ox2 brings hand-pulled noodles)
Since then, dozens upon dozens of Chinese restaurants have appeared in Chattanooga, most with the same menus of beef and broccoli and General Tso’s chicken.
Ox2, however, brings more of an authentic dining experience to the Chattanooga table with its northern Chinese cuisine. What you’ll find is a marked difference in its take on Asian fare.