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Da Hong Pao, Jerry and Jeff Chen's Cantonese with Daily Dim Sum at 14th and P Street, Logan Circle


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Surprised no one has written up Da Hong Pao. Went for dim sum Saturday in short time we had between kid holiday season activities. Arrived right at 11:00 and there were about 8 tables open. Within about 20 minutes, every table seemed to be full ad 40 minutes, there was a sizable number of people waiting, though not as long as the lines at Oriental East in Silver Spring. 

The strength of Da Hong Pao is the variety. They have a lot of different things, rivaling some places in Chicago Chinatown, but not as  many as the more extensive NYC Chinatown places. Definitely more than any place else I have been to in DMV.

Had our usuals of siu mai, ha gao, yu choi, shrimp cheong fun, lo bak go, and stuffed tofu. The steamed dumplings were all well done. The lo bak go was disappointing in that it was stone cold. By the time it came, we had requested it, we were pretty full anyway, so we ate half and packed the rest to go, figuring we can microwave later. Stuffed tofu was interesting in that it was fried like Japanese agedashi tofu, with a crispy corn starch style crust. We also got fried shrimp balls which I enjoyed, but since the kids surprisingly did not like, I ate two and a half which get pretty heavy. 

Highlight for me was that they had the crispy roast pig. Got my week's animal fat intake, and am very happy for it.

Finished with egg custard tarts for dessert which are nice and light and come  as three small ones rather than two larger ones as most places seem to do. 

Service is generally pretty good and they are responsive with keeping tea filled. Carts that come around have mostly the steamed items, and the rest, you request using the pictures on the menus. My son liked the pictures so much he wanted to take it home. They were gracious enough to give him a clean one.

This is definitely above average for DC dim sum, and head and shoulders above the rest for variety.

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8 hours ago, funkyfood said:

I went in one night for dinner with some friends and was shocked by the prices.  the average entrée was in the $20s.  we left and went to great wall.

6 hours ago, Simul Parikh said:

Had dinner when it opened up, and for 3 people it was probably $150 and we were still pretty hungry.. didn't care to write it up. Dim sum seems to be a better deal.

I'm ignorant about Chinese, but here's the definition of Da Hong Pao - it's a type of dark, Oolong tea.

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2 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

That wiki entry is wrong.  Hong Pao is the red envelop loaded with cash that Chinese people give on Chinese New Year (or any other time that giving money is appropriate, which is all the time as far as I'm concerned). Da just means big.  So the name is a big pouch of money.  Silly but fortuitous name.

But does this necessarily mean it isn't also a type of Oolong tea, maybe depending on how it's pronounced? I know that ma-ma-ma means 'Mother is scolding a horse," or something like that. I know they think the same thing about English, but Chinese seems like the most needlessly difficult language in the world (after Icelandic, Hungarian, and Khoisan).

"Hey, let's get drunk and invent a language that's so hard that nobody else can speak it!"

It says "big red robe" in the Wikipedia article, so maybe the tea is called "big red robe?"

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I was fortunate that mom was paying for the food so I can't comment on prices, and with dim sum, never even opened a menu. 

All meanings could be correct depending on tones. Always thought the red envelopes were hong bao with a b, but could be mistaken. My kids Mandarin after 3+ and1+ years at Yu Ying is already better than either my Cantonese or Mandarin ever was from college studies. Anyway, just put the characters in Google translate and assuming I transcribed correctly, it came up as big red robe.

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21 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

I'm a jackass and I'm okay.  

I sleep all night and I bray all day.

Actually you were right. As Don notes, Chinese is often unnecessarily complicated. The tea does use the characters that literally mean Big Red Robe, or at least according to Wikipedia, so it does mean big red robe, but also refers to the tea in this context.

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Had brunch there this morning.  The place opens at 10 and all the 4 tops were full soon after.  Many large tables remain unoccupied as people waited.

We had har gow, siu mai, chicken feet, spare ribs, fried yam dumplings, dailkon cake, and spring rolls.  Everything seems more mass produced...very dense har gow, siu mai and daikon cakes, very cloying chicken feet and spare ribs.  

Very different from my last visit.

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