Neo-Asia's weekend dim sum

We had heard good things about Neo-Asia's dim sum - at least that it was better than Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant's (see previous post) - so we absolutely had to drive out to Cary and give it a try.

**Note: Neo-Asia/ Neo-China has a few different locations in the RTP, and only the Cary location serves dim sum on weekends!

We ordered the typical yum cha stuff, a few of which are pictured below (sorry, I didn't quite get a chance to take a photo of the food before my hungry meal companions poked their chopsticks into the food): siu mai, spare ribs, shrimp dumplings, shrimp with fried tofu, shrimp cheong fun, and the like. All of them were pretty decent, but not that much better than HK's except for the siu mai. However, I did enjoy in particular the chives dumpling, which is not available at HK.

Select steamed dishes

What we thought was really special about the dim sum at Neo-Asia were the cold meat platters: sliced chicken with garlic sauce, sliced pork with garlic sauce, sliced spicy pork (some of which are also pictured). Those were really delicious - especially the spicy pork. The spicy sauce that was used really had a special taste that wasn't too strong, and the meat in all the cold platters was very tender and fresh.

Select cold meat platters; potstickers; green beans

We also ordered some potstickers, the obligatory veggies, and a sticky rice chicken. I didn't try all of the dishes since I'm not particularly fond of sticky rice stuff, but I was told that the sticky rice was pretty good, since it had lots of fillings (chicken and Chinese sausage and ground pork and whatnot).

Finally, for dessert, we tried the tofu pudding and sesame ball. The sesame ball was freshly fried and very yummy. The tofu pudding was both a surprise and a disappointment: the soup that accompanied it was ginger soup, which was perfect for the cold day, but the tofu itself wasn't soft enough to achieve the pudding-like texture. I definitely enjoyed the ginger soup more than the tofu part...

Overall, my favorite part of the meal was definitely the cold meat platters, but they obviously made the meal very expensive. You also do not know how much each item costs, since your card is stamped with a server's number instead of in price categories. My buddies and I enjoyed the meal, but we decided that we'll probably still stay in Durham and go to HK when we crave dim sum...

Restaurant: Neo-Asia (Cary location)
Price Range: $20-$25

Shanghai House Restaurant (No 1 Panda House) Breakfast/ Brunch

(Didn't bring my camera for this one - sorry.)

Heard some good things about the Chinese breakfast/ brunch foods at Shanghai House Restaurant (上海人家) on Guess Rd, so we decided to pay a visit. The sign still says No. 1 Panda House as its name, but officially I think it has changed to Shanghai House Restaurant.

We didn't look at any of the entree dishes because we've heard that they tend to be super oily, so we just stuck to the breakfast/ brunch items (labeled "dim sum", although there's no such thing as dim sum in Shanghai cuisine, as far as I know...)

We started out with both 甜豆漿 (sweet soymilk) and 咸豆漿 (salty soymilk). The sweet soymilk tasted very Asian, although it was quite expensive ($1.80 for a tall glass). The salty soymilk was interesting: it came with 油條 (fried dough) already soaked in, scallions, and chili oil. I was not expecting the chili oil, and thought it was a bit too oily, but otherwise, the taste was pretty good.

蔥油餅 Scallion pancakes （congyou bing)
- These tasted wonderful - very crispy but not overdone. The scallions' fragrance was also plentiful. However, I have no idea how they managed to make these so oily.

小籠湯包 Shanghainese soup dumplings (xiaolong tangbao)
- Personally, I am not a huge fan of these in the first place, plus the one I tried didn't exactly have a lot of soup in it, so I wasn't too impressed with these.

生煎包 Fried pork buns (shengjian bao)
- I thought these were great - the dough was extremely fluffy and fried to perfection!

豆沙酥餅 Red bean paste layered bun (dousha subing)
- This was very good (probably because it wasn't oily at all). The bean paste was hot, and the dough was flaky and crispy.

咸飯糰 Rice roll (xian fantuan)
- This was also one of my favorites (in fact, I ordered another one for myself later on). Inside the rice roll, they added pickled radish, pork sung, and a small slice of fried dough for plenty of flavor.

Overall, I felt that however well-made these dishes were, the greasiness was too much for us to handle. Perhaps it will be all right for some other Chinese foodies out there, but I don't think I'll be visiting again anytime soon.

Restaurant: Shanghai House Restaurant/ No 1 Panda House (Breakfast/ Brunch)
Price: Around $10

35 Chinese, Part II

Went back to 35 Chinese with a different group - this time, with people who were more tolerant of spicy foods (yippee!). We still ordered the same appetizers: 夫妻肺片/ sliced roast beef and tendon (fuqi feipian) and 蒜泥白肉 / sliced pork belly in garlic sauce (suan'ni bairou). Otherwise, I think most of the dishes were different, so here we go...

五更腸旺 / chitterlings with tofu hot pot (wugeng changwang)

- The photo really doesn't do this dish justice, because it was one of my favorites of the evening. It had a lot of flavor besides just straight-up spicy, which is always nice. The dish does contain pork intestines and pork blood, which might turn some of you away... although I do have a friend who doesn't eat intestines but makes an exception for this particular dish here - so really, it's worth it.
The only downer to this is that the pork blood is kind of dry, so I wouldn't expect too much from that. Otherwise, thumbs up.

蔥爆牛肉 / beef with scallions (congbao niurou)

- Although this isn't a traditional Szechuan dish, we still ordered it. It was pretty good - the beef was tender, and plenty of flavor.

麻婆豆腐 / Mapo tofu

- This is my favorite dish EVER at this restaurant. Ever. Probably because I haven't had the authentic version of mapo tofu for a long, long time. It was served in a 砂锅 (clay pot) instead of plate - the way that it's supposed to be, and it has plenty of the 麻 ("numbing") element, which means you should probably save room for this dish last. Overall, I was impressed and happy with the authenticity of this mapo tofu.

清炒丝瓜 / cooked loofah

- Yep, loofah. I was really excited about this dish because I love loofah vegetable, but we were appalled to discover that it tasted bitter (might have spoiled). We sent the dish back in exchange for 乾扁四季豆 / string beans Western style (ganbian sijidou), which was pretty much the same as the last time.

Overall, with the exception of the disappointment of the loofah, it was an enjoyable meal. Their service does slow down as the evening goes on (they seem to be short on staff), so you should arrive early and order quickly. Between six of us, we ordered six dishes and it ended up being $15 each. Not particularly more expensive than any of the other Chinese restaurants that I've reviewed so far, I think.

Restaurant: 35 Chinese Restaurant

Price Range: Around $15

Eastern Lights

Eastern Lights... I've been coming here since freshman year (I believe it was my first Chinese restaurant in Durham), and now it's time to give it a proper review.

We ordered mostly from the Chef's Specialties menu, which features more authentic Chinese dishes:

香乾肉絲 (xiang'gan rousi; Pork and bean curd slices)

- This has always been my favorite dish, probably because it's the lightest dish of the five, and the flavoring is done pretty well.

魚香茄子 (yuxiang qiezi; Yu-hsiang eggplant)

- The eggplant itself was good, but it did not have the yu-hsiang flavor at all. It was basically eggplants soaked in yu-hsiang sauce.

麻婆豆腐 (mapo doufu; Mapo spicy tofu)

- Whatever this was, it was not mapo tofu... please do not order this dish here and think that this is real mapo tofu. It was not spicy, the flavoring wasn't right, and the tofu had a strangely sour taste (not because it was going bad, but just not the right kind of tofu).

川辣炒牛肉 (chuanla chao niurou; Szechuan-style beef)

- The beef was very tender, but the sauce was so heavy for this dish that I couldn't enjoy more than a few pieces of it...

爆炒五花肉 (baochao wuhuarou; Stir-fried pork belly slices)

- Another dish that we've always ordered since freshman year. Again, it was delicious, but the flavoring is so strong that you just can't take too much of it.

Overall, Eastern Lights' flavor is just very heavy and oily - you'll leave feeling full and probably collapse in a food coma pretty soon. For Chinese food, there are definitely better choices out there in the RTP - we probably won't be back here anytime soon...

Restaurant: Eastern Lights (燕京)
Price Range: Around $15

Fortune Palace Chinese Restaurant

I’d heard that Fortune Palace in Raleigh has a pretty authentic Chinese food, so we went out for lunch over the weekend.

We skipped to the last few pages of the menu - the Chinese menu (rather than the Americanized Chinese food) - and ordered 1 appetizer and 6 entrees to share among seven people.

Appetizer:

海蜇皮 (haizhe pi; Salted Jellyfish)

- It was all right; the key to this dish is that it should be served cold, and unfortunately ours came out at room temp. It had plenty of flavor, though.

Entrees:

梅菜扣肉 (meicai kourou; Pork Belly Slices with Preserved Vegetables)

- Although the color of the meat looks lighter than typical 梅菜扣肉, I assure you that the taste is wonderfully authentic. (As I’ve said before, though, pork belly itself is just a miracle.) The sad part is that although it looks like a large heap in the photo, the meat is only the outermost layer – inside is all preserved vegetables. This place is quite stingy with their pork belly…

豆酥豆腐 (dousu doufu; Tofu with Soy Crisps)

- Another memorable dish. The crispiness of the soy crisps complemented the soft tofu very well, and the flavoring was done just right. Also, the whole concept of using 豆酥 just seems extremely creative to me.

港式燒鴨 (gangshi kaoya; Cantonese-style Roast Duck)

- My favorite dish of the entire meal. I love roast duck, and I am picky about it because I’ve tried it at so many places. The skin was thin and slightly crispy, and the meat was tender and juicy. Just perfect. My recommendation: eat it without the sauce.

鐵板牛柳 (tieban niuliu; Sizzling Beef)

- This dish came with the steam and sizzles, like any typical sizzling platter – but that was about it. It actually had somewhat of a Thai taste. The beef was pretty tender, but overall it wasn’t that memorable.

蝦醬四季豆 (xiajiang sijidou; Green Beans with Shrimp Paste)

- This was pretty interesting. I couldn’t figure out how they got their green beans to become all wrinkled – whether they fried it for a long time or boiled it first. But either way, I think the green beans lost some of their chewiness. The shrimp taste is definitely there – tastes almost like it was made with dried shrimp.

空心菜 (kongxincai; Water Spinach)

- A typical vegetable dish, stir-fried with garlic – good, light complement to the entire meal.

Overall, our group enjoyed the meal very much, although their portions were quite small - especially compared to 35 Chinese Restaurant's portions. Seven people were not full, even after ordering so many dishes. Compare the photo of their string beans with the string beans from 35. Two pictures say two thousand words. However, they do have an advantage over 35 in that they are not as oily in their dishes.

I did like their food, though, and I do hope to go back and try some more dishes, if not only to have the roast duck again. Worth a go.

Restaurant: Fortune Palace Chinese Restaurant (天福樓)
Price Range: Around $15

35 Chinese Restaurant

After yum cha at HK Chinese Restaurant, we still weren’t quite satisfied with our fill of Chinese food, so we decided to make a trip to Cary for 35 Chinese Restaurant’s Szechuan cuisine.

(Note: there are two 35 Chinese Restaurants in the area, one in Cary and one in Chapel Hill. What I’ve heard is that the Cary location is by far the better one, although I haven’t been to the one in Chapel Hill.)

There were four of us, so we ordered two dishes from the “Appetizer” (冷盤, or cold dish) menu and three from the “Entrée” menu. (I don’t remember the exact English translation of these dishes, but they should be something similar to what I have…)

Cold Dishes:

夫妻肺片 (Fuqi Feipian; Sliced Roast Beef and Tendon)

蒜泥白肉 (Suan’ni Bairou; Sliced Belly Pork in Garlic Sauce)

Top: Fuqi Feipian; Bottom: Suan'ni Bairou

Entrees:

回鍋肉 (Huiguo Rou; Twice-Cooked Pork)

香菇豆腐煲 (Xiang’gu Doufu Bao; Mushroom and Tofu Pot)

乾扁四季豆 (Ganbian Sijidou; String Beans Western Style)

Top: Huiguo Rou; Middle: Xiang’gu Doufu Bao; Bottom: Ganbian Sijidou

We asked for everything to be less spicy (少辣), although I, being a genuine Hunanese (湖南人; a province in China well-known for their hot cuisine), can tolerate pretty spicy stuff. The good thing about asking for less spicy is that less chili sauce is used, meaning everything is less oily.

The Fuqi Feipian’s taste is very authentic, but it’s also the most oily and spicy dish out of the five (which is probably why it’s authentic). If you like Fuqi Feipian though, you’d probably enjoy it. Just don't say I didn't warn you about the oil...

The Suan’ni Bairou was definitely my favorite dish of the meal. The texture was just right (well, pork belly is almost always great), and the sauce was done really well. It was a great mixture of sweet & salty, as well as garlic taste.

The Huiguo Rou’s meat pieces were cut into very thin slices – the thinner the better for pork belly – and flavored with black beans and leeks (大蒜苗), making it a dish with what my friend called “many layers of flavor.” Another great dish!

The Xiang’gu Doufu Bao wasn’t too impressive. The kind of tofu they used was not the regular bean curd, but tofu puffs (油豆腐).

Finally, the Ganbian Sijidou was pretty decent. It was made with pickled mustard and seasoned with salt, instead of with the usual ground pork and rice wine, but the taste was still pretty good. However, in my experience, to get the freshest vegetables, it’s still probably wiser to ask your waiter or waitress which vegetables are available and ask the kitchen to prepare it a certain style for you.

Overall, 35 Chinese is probably one of the most authentic Chinese restaurants I’ve had around here, and splitting 5 dishes between 4 people resulted in $14 per person, which wasn’t too bad at all.

Restaurant: 35 Chinese Restaurant

Price Range: $12-20 per person

- Worth the trip, especially when you’re craving real Szechuan food.

Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant's weekend dim sum

I’ve had a lot of good yum cha (more commonly known as dim sum) since I have a handful of relatives in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and NorCal. I didn’t expect too much from Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant’s yum cha, but I was a bit surprised.

We ordered the usual stuff: siu mai (燒賣), har gau (蝦餃; shrimp dumpling), cheong fun (腸粉; rice noodle roll). The siu mai was delicious – mostly ground pork with just a bit of shrimp paste. The har gau was pretty decent, and the cheong fun’s noodle skin wasn’t firm enough.

Left photo, top plate: shrimp dumplings. Left photo, bottom plate: siu mai. Right photo: rice noodle rolls.

We also tried a plate of the char siu (叉燒; Cantonese barbecued pork), which was very nicely done. Good amount of sauce, and pretty tender meat. Another good dish was their sliced ham (火腿), which was served with red vinegar and diced garlic - these two were probably my favorite.

Top: Cantonese barbecue pork. Bottom: sliced ham with red vinegar.

Finally, we also ordered their lo bak go (蘿蔔糕; turnip cake). It wasn't anything spectacular, but good enough to satisfy a craving. Of course, we had a plate of vegetables, which changes from visit to visit based on freshness and availability.

Turnip cakes.

We finished the day with some dessert - matuan (麻糰). Overall, a pretty decent meal. There were some other dishes that were ordered, but I didn't try enough to give a good enough review. Maybe someone else out there can give them a try and leave some feedback?

Restaurant: Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant

Price Range: $15-20 per person

- Worth it - yum cha is a good choice for Chinese food because it's not oily, and you can sample many different options. Give it a try, and you're bound to discover at least one or two dishes you'll like.