Chris W.

Here is an article from the Osawatomie Graphic Newspaper. We LOVE Helen. She is hard working and gracious. She has tweaked the menu and has some new entrees. We go to Mulan once a week and enjoy it very much. For a small town Asian American Restaurant, you cannot beat it. I hope that she gets enough customer support to stay open. "Osawatomie's long-established Chinese restaurant, Mulan at the end of Sixth Street, has a new owner who brings to town 24 years' experience from her Fortune Star restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas University Jayhawk enthusiasm and her long-time chef. "His name is John," Helen Lam said, laughing, "but his last name is too hard to pronounce." Joined by her sister, Mary, Lam has re-opened the drive-thru after fixing the bell, she said, "so I could hear customers pulling up" and offers at-home delivery. With three-time weekly deliveries from three different vendors, Lam said her focus is on fresh. "I pay a lot of attention to my food," she said. "It has to be fresh." All that is missing is customers. After taking over Aug. 1 from the former owners who, she said, moved to New York, the business she expected from an established restaurant is non-existent. "I don't know what happened," she said. "Maybe I should have done more research." Lam sold her Overland Park restaurant, located at 119th Street and Metcalf, when she got an offer from Sanford and Sons Comedy Club. Her retirement was short-lived. "I've been working seven days a week for 24 years," she said. "After one month I was going crazy." She spotted an advertisement for the Osawatomie restaurant and snatched it up. Fortune Star would feed some 200 people every Sunday, and her cooking skills show best, she said, when she cooks authentic Chinese. John has perfected those Chinese-American standards beloved by those seeking sweet and sour pork, General Tso's chicken, shrimp with lobster sauce and beef with broccoli. "I wasn't famous, but everyone knew my restaurant," she said. Originally from Taiwan, Lam came to Kansas in 1982, settling in Lawrence where her husband was a student at K.U. After his graduation, they headed to Overland Park where she raised two sons, David, 22, now a senior at K.U., and Steven, 32, already graduated from K.U. and working in his father's import-export business. Her biggest frustration in her new location is the buffet, where a lack of customers affects its quality. "Customers complain that it's cold," she said, "and I waste a lot of food. "I've been thinking, thinking, thinking what to do, but now I need to do something." Driving around Osawatomie, Lam said she knows more than 4,000 people live here but frets how to get them into Mulan's. "My food is fresh, that's for sure," she said. "We use vegetable oil and not a lot of fat. "We keep the restaurant clean, we are friendly, and I will usually do what customers ask." Ordering off the menu, even when the buffet is open, is always welcome. "The former owners said business is slow during October, November and December," she said. "I'm trying to figure out what to do," she said, looking around her empty restaurant just after the lunch hour one day last week, where her lunch crowd was two people. "I just haven't come to the conclusion yet." The new Mulan is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Fridays, 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturdays and 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays. Because Helen Lam likes to work seven days a week."