Monday, October 22, 2007

Jing Fong Restaurant in Chinatown

A couple weekends ago, I took some out-of-town friends to Jing Fong Restaurant for some dim sum. If you never had dim sum, it is a traditional Cantonese brunch menu that includes Chinese (Jasmine and/or Chrysanthemum) tea, dumplings, cakes, pastries and congee (rice porridge). You can also get the more exotic dishes or cuts of meat like stew chicken feet, fish bladder soup and stewed pork stomach.

This photo shows the small room/section of the restaurant, which have been renovated recently. The dim sum menu here is vast and quite inexpensive. It is one of my favorite places to bring friends for brunch on weekends.

So what is the most exotic food/meat you have ever eaten?

21 comments:

photolicious said...

I hope I don't stir up any offence by saying this....but if I were to live in a foreign land, I wouldn't go into familiar grounds like Chinatown, Little Italy or Little Whatever.

My reason: I want to be as near to the foreign culture as possible and cut off all dependence on familiar stuff.

I once had a professor from France who told me: "I didn't travel 10,000km to mix with the French here."

The Strange Republic
www.veryclicky.blogspot.com

Shammickite said...

I love dim sun, but haven't had any for ages! I'm a bit wary of the chicken's feet though.
Exotic meat? Well, I had kangaroo meat in Australia, and a Buffalo Burger when in South Dakota. Not very adventurous am I?

Jilly said...

I love dim sun and what a restaurant this is - well what a ceiling! Fantastic.

Think I've too many favourite foods to list really but I suppose if I had to choose it'd be Italian. Would love to eat in this restaurant tho.

Anonymous said...

Love dim-sum, more so cos' I miss them. :) ...are phoenix claws(chicken feet) considered exotic? Well , I like those in dim-sum ,though not very healthy. :p

Anonymous said...

Alligator is as daring as I get.

Peter said...

A good sign is that you can see many Chinese faces here. It should be a certain guarantee that the food is really Chinese and good!

Anonymous said...

Looks like a poker room at a Chinese casino.

Craftymoose Crafts said...

Beautiful restaurant--I can almost smell the food!

Most exotic food I've ever eaten? Alligator,quail,eel,buffalo,goat--although admittedly most of these are no longer "exotic"!

Kate said...

"Thinking Fool" has a right-on comment! Asian food is always delicious, especially Szuchuan. Exotic foods?---try cow intestine soup once and you'll never try it again!

teahouse said...

OMG..we were at Jing Fong yesterday!! We go there for dim sum just about every other Sunday..the Fiance loves that place!!!

Chris said...

What a beautiful restaurant!

Most exotic food? I am *NOT* adventurous at all. . . .I guess buffalo steak, conch and sweetbreads (not at that same time)are the most exotic foods I've ever had. . .and once was quite enough, thank you!

NormanTheDoxie said...

Looks like a fun place.

I'm a little phobic of strange foods....give me a salad and I'm happy.

Rafe Totengco said...

Love that restaurant. I haven't been in ages.

thwany said...

i went to a wedding banquet there once and the food came out in 7 courses.

by the third course, my friends and are were pretty much about to fall asleep from all the msg in the food.

i'm sure the dim sum is great tho. i love me some dim sum.

• Eliane • said...

Yeah, a Chinese restaurant recommendation! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! So I have to ask because I am always a bit intimidated by such busy place like this. How do you order? Is this one of those places where they keep bringing things and you have to point out to what you want? Or do you ask for the brunch menu? Just curious. Gracias.

I think the most exotic restaurant I went to was an Ethiopian place somewhere in the village. It was very good actually - or maybe I was just happily surprised.
But I love t try exotic cuisines - it's travelling in your plate. How cool is that?

My two cents on what photolicious had to say: I agree partly. But as a foodie, I cannot resist checking out the Belgian and French places once in a while to make sure they are doing things right! ;) And, they are flavors you groew up to which you will never get tired of. Sometimes you crave them. Especially when you grew up with one of the best cuisines in the world. This applies to both Chinese and Belgian and French cuisines.

TCho said...

hmmm. I guess Abalone is the most "exotic" food I've eaten.

Todd HellsKitchen said...

I was reading about a Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood that serves Grasshopper Tacos...

Unknown said...

one of the nicest thing is to spend time with family and friends enjoying dim sums!

i especially love steamed pork ribs, siu mai and 'phoenix claws'.

Meg said...

Oh, sigh, sigh, sigh, I love a big old Chinese restaurant...

The strangest - snake in Xian. I was with three blokes who finished a year learning Chinese in Beijing; they took me to the famous (??) Revolutionary Dumpling Restaurant (roughly translated) where they served something like 47 tiny dumplings. #23 was shrimp. Then came #27, and they asked the waitress some in-depth questions, and then turned blue; they explained that the accent was different in Xian and Beijing, and realized #27 was the shrimp, and #23 was snake. You really couldn't tell because the dumplings were tiny, but they were awfully quiet after that.

HR said...

I guess I'm not that adventurous when it comes to food tasting because the most exotic meat I had was buffalo.

Thank you for telling us about this restaurant, next time I'll be in NY, I'll make sure to try it :)

J.C. said...

The most exotic food ---- hee...hee..I tried monkey meat during a survival camp outing with the Army! And in Guangzhou,China, I tasted worms steamed with eggs!