Healthful Foods Taste No Good? Try It at Chin's Asia Fresh! (2/2)

Decor is contemporary and avoids the stereotypical Chinese look of the immigrant mom-and-pop restaurants of old, Finn says. Understated accents in the spacious dining rooms include bamboo trim, framed Chinese characters on the walls and containers of chopsticks on the tables. Service: Borrowed from Fast Casual Dining The executive team approaches Chin's Asia Fresh with a quick-service mentality, rather than the casual-dining. Service, however, borrows more from such casual dining niceties as delivering food to the tables and using china plates and cups, glassware and metal utensils. Servers or managers visit tables to inquire about guest satisfaction, and employees bus and clean the tables. In addition, servers offer customers complimentary samples of chocolate-dipped fortune cookies toward the end of their meals as an added treat. Many guests purchase additional cookies, which are priced at four for $1. The first Chin's opened in Brookfield, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee, in June 2002. A second location opened on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in December 2002. There are now a total of five locations in Madison, Milwaukee and Rochester, MN. Chin's received "Best Asian Restaurant" awards from Madison magazine and The Badger Herald newspaper of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (*Source: 1) Press release by Leeann Chin, Inc. via Business Wire, September, 2004. For more information, visit the Leeann Chin, Inc. website at LeeannChin.com, or the Chin's website at Chin.com. Compiled by A-R-N editors.)