Dim Sum at Jing Fong

As you’ll remember from my post last May, I never realized that a true “dim sum” meal was only served between the hours of 11am and 4pm on weekends. I literally thought it was a style of dining that could happen on any day at any hour, and Patrick and I learned the hard way that this wasn’t so. Over the long President’s Day Weekend two weeks ago, 7 friends, Patrick and I ventured down to China Town at an appropriate hour (1pm) to enjoy some Dim Sum at Jing Fong on an appropriate day (Sunday.) Boy were we in for an adventure.

Thanks to a good friend from home, I had been out until about 5am the night before this dim sum adventure, so needless to say, I was running a few minutes late for our 1pm meeting time. Since I have such punctual friends, some of them were right on time and were able to put our name in for a table. When Patrick and I rounded the corner onto Elizabeth Street, we saw a small mob assembled on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. I panicked for a moment because I was getting what my friends and I like to call “hangry,” a combination of hungry and angry, the later being mainly caused by the former. Once we met up with our friends, we were told the wait wouldn’t be too long, and it really wasn’t.

I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly large parties were being called into the restaurant, and then I became skeptical. I mean, how could they possibly seat THAT many people THAT quickly? I would soon learn the answer to my question. When our table was called, I did a little yelp of joy and followed my friends inside.

What I wasn’t expecting was a very long escalator that we had to ride underneath a beautiful crystal chandelier.

An escalator in a restaurant? Hm, okay. There’s a first time for everything.

Nothing could prepare me for the room we were about to walk into. The only thing that makes me happier than a real football field is a restaurant the size of a football field, which Jing Fong is. Hundreds of people sat in the room as tables of varying sizes pulling food off of carts as they rolled by How glorious this dim sum idea was! I couldn’t believe the eating adventure I was about to embark upon.

The 9 of us sat at our table and almost immediately, about 12 plates of food were placed in front of us. They just kept pulling dishes off the cart and we just kept shaking our heads yes. More food, please! I squealed with excitement, pulled apart my chopsticks, poured myself a huge glass of water and a cup of tea and off I went.

I can’t really explain in detail every single thing I ate, but there were shumai (my favorite), dumplings, spring rolls, vegetables, chicken feet (Patrick’s fave):

and lots of other things filled with various kinds of meat (shrimp, pork, chicken, beef).  I absolutely loved the shrimp shumai:

and the Taro Cake:

A Taro Cake is a slightly spongy dish that my friend Kat encouraged me to try. It was a flavor unlike anything I’d ever had before, earthy and full of flavor. I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself out for dim sum.

Every time a cart rolled by, we shook our heads yes for more plates to be placed on our table.

The more we ate, the more water we gulped to offset the intense amount of sodium we were consuming and I was sure this meal was going to cost me a pretty penny based solely on how much food we had. When we couldn’t possibly eat another bite, we requested our check and I prepared myself for what I was sure would be a lot of damage. Not so. It came out to exactly $15 per person INCLUDING tax and tip. In New York City? For that much food? Surely there must have been a mistake.

I left Jing Fong with both a tummy and a wallet that were full and happy. We climbed back onto the escalator to go back out into the street and even though I was the thirstiest I had ever been in my entire life, I considered our meal to be a great success.

Have you ever done a dim sum brunch? What are some of your favorite dishes you’ve had?

Let’s Eat!

-The Fabulous Foodie