Back in the days when Michael Gaughan ran Coast Casinos, there was something a little peculiar on the menu in his coffee shops: good Chinese food. Perhaps it was there to draw Asian tourists away from the Strip or to offer a two-for-one restaurant experience. Or perhaps Gaughan just digs sweet-and-sour pork. It doesn’t matter. I can recall more than a few late nights of booze-fueled stupidity ending with a big bowl of soothing wonton soup in the former Monterey Room at the Gold Coast. (It’s long gone now, sadly replaced by TGI Friday’s. Ugh.)

So when I recently saw “New Chinese Menu!” emblazoned on the marquee at the Palms, touting the expanded offerings at the 24/7 Cafe, I got a little nostalgic. Could the food at George Maloof’s coffee shop live up to the Gold Coast legend? All the standards are there: beef and broccoli, chow mein, lemon chicken. The wonton soup is wonderfully aromatic, almost miso-ish, and fully stocked with bok choy, thin egg noodles, sliced barbecue pork and several large, meaty dumplings. It adequately fulfills all my Chinese-soup-in-coffee-shop needs. I’m not sure if it beats the memory, but then again, I wasn’t drunk this time.