JING FONG RESTAURANT, New York City – Chinatown – Menu, Prices & Restaurant Reviews – Tripadvisor

If indeed commercial leases are falling, it could be a good time. The places that serve dim sum around here are pedestrian at best. I include Jing Fong in that assessment, a cavernous place that fills up by 11:00 on weekends with a long wait…thereafter for most of the early afternoon.

I have had excellent dim sum in Richardson, TX; Arlington, TX; San Francisco; Denver; London; Singapore; Bangkok; Beijing; Shenzhen; and Hong Kong. So I know what it is and that it is doable. Why is it so difficult in the NYC area?

We’ve made the trek from northern Westchester on a weekend day a number of times to Jing Fong, most recently a week ago. We were seated just as it was filling up. We saw the same three carts go by repeatedly, one of which was all deep-fried selections. A number of the standards were never made available. What we did have was not so much creative as making use of less expensive ingredients (e.g. shrimp balls that had a bit more than their souls, but not much more.)

Need I say that New York is a great city, with a substantial Asian population, that could certainly support a good, clean restaurant overseen by a chef who might deign to serve top notch dim sum on weekends at least. Chinese food is much more of course, with a huge diversity- just check out Pei Mei’s three volumes. We have a number of good Chinese and other Asian cuisine places here. But my dream is a Hong Kong-trained chef discovering the huge opportunity here then seeking backing by some willing entrepreneurs.

Jing Fong does not deserve the custom it draws.