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

Adventures in China Town

There is a television show on the Food Network that Patrick and I are both obsessed with called The Best Thing I Ever Ate. Every episode has a different theme like "Grilled," "Between Bread" and "With Bacon." On a recent episode, the theme was "In a Bowl." Guy Fieri's choice was the Hand-Pulled Noodles with Beef from Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles in China Town NYC and the dish looked amazing! I am a sucker for good noodles, and Patrick and I decided while watching the episode that we had to go.

This next part of the story is mildly embarrassing for me, so please, no judgement. I personally had no idea that Dim Sum was typically only served between the hours of 11am and 4pm. I thought "Dim Sum" referred to the small dishes served and not to the meal itself, which is apparently equivalent to brunch. Since we were already planning to venture down to China Town, I suggested we also go have some Dim Sum. Seeing as we didn't even leave the apartment until after 4pm, I had no idea that I was setting us up for a Dim Sum disaster.

I'm somewhat of a Twitter nerd, and decided to reach out to some of my favorite foodies for Dim Sum recommendations. One of them, Kelly Choi former host of Top Chef Masters and current host of several local NY food show, has responded to me on Twitter before and this time was no different:Thanks Kelly!! Her first reco, Golden Unicorn, had come up in several of my Dim Sum searches so we decided to go there.

We took the R-train down to China Town and emerged from the subway smack in the middle of a neighborhood that we were both incredibly unfamiliar with. Thanks to the map on my iPhone, we found Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles with no trouble at all. And what luck! Golden Unicorn was only one street away! We were excited, and we were hungry.

We walked into the noodle shop and I was shocked to see that it was tiny! Less than 20 seats, and almost all of them were full. They sat us across from each other at a table for 6 in between a couple and another girl. We opened the enormous menus and decided on the Pan-Fried House Special Pulled Noodles with Chicken, Beef & Shrimp (for an astoundingly cheap $6.50!) and the Dumpling Soup for $6. This was shaping up to be the cheapest meal we've ever had in New York City!

What we quickly realized was that the other 3 people at our table were also there because of Guy Fieri's recommendation on the Food Network. We spent the meal chatting with them and they were all so nice! We compared favorite restaurants in New York and talked about the food we were eating and just had a lovely time in general. When our food came, it looked and smelled amazing and we couldn't wait to dig into the noodles. The pan-fried dish was awesome, the noodles were the perfect consistency and packed with great flavor.I loved the shrimp, chicken and beef mixed throughout and the plate was empty before we could say "Dim What?"

Then the soup came, piping hot and smelling like heaven. I know it's a silly word to use to describe food, but the noodles were beautiful!It was SO hot that I burned my mouth a few times, but it was a small price to pay for the amazing soup. By the end of the meal we were so full we could barely move, but I still had my heart set on "Dim Sum" so we paid our very cheap bill, said good-bye to our new friends and set off to Golden Unicorn.

We walked through the front door and were surprised to learn we needed to take an elevator up to the restaurant. When the doors of the elevator opened, we walked into a bright room that was partly set up for a wedding reception with several large tables off to the side for non-wedding patrons. We sat at a table for four, by ourselves this time, and this was when my Dim Sum hopes and dreams were crushed. The menu looked like a normal Chinese menu and I saw no mention of Dim Sum. Uh oh. I sort of knew that I was wrong about the Dim Sim timing, but my fear was confirmed when I asked our waiter who told us Dim Sum was 11-4. Oh well!

Although we were stuffed, we ordered Pork Dumplings and Moo Shu Pork to share. The dumplings were good, pretty standard.When I was little, my grandma (DD) and I always used to order Moo Shu together. Something about the way they come to your table to prepare it makes me love it that much more.The pancakes were fluffy, the hoisin sauce tangy and sweet and the filling was excellent.I was quite happy with the food, but still sad that we didn't get to experience Dim Sum. We will definitely be returning to China Town soon for a true Dim Sum experience!

Have you ever been to Dim Sum? What is your favorite dish? Let me know so I can order it next time.

Let's Eat!
-The Fabulous Foodie