New Kam Fong, Wheaton

[deangold]

Wea have been lamenting the state of late night eating in Wheaton of late. Irene's is great but loud music often makes dining there painful. We don't do Sergio's any more ofter horrendous service. Paul Kee has gotten dingy and the service dingier and the food boring. Full Key can be hit or miss. HEOTB is gone for now. And Wong Gee is all over the palce but basically good at best but it just hasn't made it to our hit parade.

So a couple of nights ago we saw New Kam Fong open and tonight we went by after a drive back from seeing friends in Baltimore.

They had a special of 2 lobster for $23.95 and our server was super friendly. But we were not very hungry and needed soup so we asked about pork and pickled vegetable soup and she came back with the suggestion of duck with pickled cabbage. We took her up on it and then added a plate of BBQ rib, pointing to their BBQ case across the room. She explained that that was different then the rib on the menu and she would have them chop 2 ribs for us and we would pay by the pound.

The rib hit the table first. It was rich, moist, well flavored with a tasty spice ruba nd a good sweet/soy based sauce. The order was nice sized but somehow did not last long. Very good and far superior to any BBQ meats we have had recently.

Then came the soup. It really was overfilled with white round noodles, lots of BBQ duck chopped into slivers, black mushrooms, pickled veggie and slivers of snow pea and fresh greens. The only quibble was that there was so much stuff in the bowl that there was barely enough room for the broth which was outstanding. Star anise and ginger were apparent. We added a splash of soy and red vinegar to balance the soup perfectly. As hard as we tried, we just could not finish the serving. 2 Tsing Tao, the meat and the soup were $26 and included two bowls of tapioca and chestnut soup in a reddish/grey broth. This dessert was one of the best version of a common dish we have ever had.

They have been open 6 days so far, the service is heartfelt and very friendly. They are still testing their hours but they are staying open till 1am for the first 30 days. I was checking out the fish tank and they had eel which they can deep fry, stir fry with black bean sauce or do "any way you want". The lobster looked good sized and there were a few crab as well as very plump looking Tilapia. The water was pristine unlike some places I could name.

If they are still shaking things out this is going to be a serious joint! We will be back to try some cooked foods and report more. We may even force ourselves to sacrifice and eat the two lobsters for $23.95!!!

But now our list for late night eats has two places far out in front on it: New Kam Fong and Kabab 'n Karahi on New Hampshire in Cloverly. These are two places where a couple can eat well, with great service and not drop more than $30.

They used to own Kam Fong in China Town in DC on 7th, but I don't remember it at all!

[goodeats]

They used to own Kam Fong in China Town in DC on 7th, but I don't remember it at all!

This was the place right next to CVS at the corner of 7th & H St, NW. I really loved going there for their Cantonese baked breads. Dim sum was worse than Fortune, but the roasted Cantonese items were pretty spot on. I hope they start their baked goods open at the new place - it used to only be $1 for their great roast pork bread!

[xcanuck]

Anyone have a link to their menu? A quick Google search didn't yield anything.

[deangold]

No web site that I can find. I will try my hand at scanning one but no promises...

Lunch today was roast piggie and pork & preserved egg congee. When the plate of pig arrived I dove in. One waitress came over, very obviously looking to see if I was eating the skin and fat. When she saw that most of the skin and fat was eaten before the lean, she just smiled. Everyone on the floor came and said hi to me. It is so nice to ahve a place with such welcoming service.

The congee was as the soup and noodles, in need of a little salt. Since I like my conge with a touch of soy and red vinegar and white pepper, this allowed me to achieve the proper balance of flavors and getting to the exact level of saltiness I like. I asked about a dish called Beef Motsu chow foon and I was told it is beef and then she pointed to her stomach and said insides. She then paid me a high complement: "You should order. You like real Chinese food!"

[xcanuck]

So after a disappointing visit yesterday to Wong Gee, I decided to follow Dean's recommendations and try out New Kam Fong.

First of all, I have to agree that the service is very friendly. I was greeted warmly and encouraged to ask questions/state my preferences. What a selection! It'll take some time to work out which are my favorites. I ended up taking home three dishes for lunch today.

We started with a small appetizer of wontons in hot sauce (the waitress's recommendation when I asked for something spicy). The wontons are made with a combination of shrimp and pork - very tasty! The sauce was slightly sweet and moderately spicy. A little tang and it would be perfect. The heat wasn't quite what you'd get at a place like JNH. Lisa thought the spiciness was perfect. I appreciated the sweetness and the flavour from the ample amounts of shrimp. We got about a dozen medium-large wontons for only $5.95. Not a bad value!

I ordered the beef motsu with egg noodle in soup that Dean mentioned earlier. Nice, large chunks of well cleaned beef intestine (Wong Gee - take note!!), served up in a broth with baby bok choy and egg noodles. The broth looks like beef broth but tastes like chicken broth steeped in tripe. A little light tasting - it could've used something to perk it up (maybe some cinnamon? anise? red pepper flakes?). But overall, on a chilly day, this is the perfect comfort food for someone who likes the texture and taste of beef tripe.

Lisa got the winner - salted fish/diced chicken/bean curd hot pot casserole. Damn! but this tasted good. You've got to appreciate the occasional hit of salty dried fish (which we love). It was cooked in a simple white sauce which really allowed the flavour of the salt fish to come out without overwhelming the dish. Lots of chunks of chicken in it. It's another nice comfort food for a fall day.

I'd say we went 3 for 3 at lunch. They've got a very large menu (which I'll try to scan and post later today). It'll be tough to really figure out what the best dishes are. Maybe this place is a good candidate for a $20 Tuesday?

[deangold]

it could've used something to perk it up (maybe some cinnamon? anise? red pepper flakes?). But overall, on a chilly day, this is the perfect comfort food for someone who likes the texture and taste of beef tripe.

Every soup so far has needed perking up. I have been successful with the red vinegar, soy & hot chile paste. Also if you have roast meats in the soup, the meats are very well spiced and give it that final kick.

The won tons in soup take me back to a little joint in LA where I used to have to wait in line for won ton soup at 7am because of all the old Chinese gents who were just thru with their daily Tai Chi routines. Glad to hear they were ok in spicy sauce as I was afraid that that was a throw in on hte menu. I get the feeling this place will have loads of dishes on the menu to avoid but they are easy to spot. I think if you stay with any dis that falls into the part is parts category or has a mis-spelling in the name {Fried good dale, sauteed leap in egg broth etc} you will do fine.

[xcanuck]

See the attached file for the New Kam Fong menu

NewKamFongMenu.pdf

[deangold]

Kay and I began our journey of discovery of all the dishes with misspelled & obvios typo'd names. Today's dish was Green Leap in Egg Broth. We were quizzed by our waitress how did we know to order that dish? I tild her it just sounded interesting on the menu. In nay case, it was a green that might have been pea shoot or sweet potato vine, hard to tell. It was cooked in a light broth with some unidentified stuff in it and topped with egg and 1000 year egg. The egg seems to ahve been broken into the broth and the white stirred while the yolk was left undisturbed. The result was fragile shreds or rags of white and lumbs of yolk. The 1000 year old egg was particularly good tasting. If you don't like it in this dish, you will probably never like it. Kay, lucky for me, falls into this latter camp.

Our second dish was a split opinion, pan fried noodles with seafood. The mystery meat cakes common to this dish were really good. In fact, it seemed that two common and usually bought ingredients were really good here. The sauce was a little undersalted as all the food here has been. But I liked the lightness of the dish. I do wish I had asked for a bit of chili oil to spike it up a little.

Again the service was super friendly.

I asked the boss man if we could do a large dinner and of course he was very pleased. He can do a mixed meat platter with a little bit of every thing they make in the roasted meat case including the intestines and cuttlefish. Since they are still running the 2 lobster special, this could be a lot of fun. And we could have Fried Good Dale!

[synaesthesia]

And we could have Fried Good Dale!

About fried good dale.

[deangold]

About fried good dale.

Thanks!

New Kam Fong has so many oddly named things that ordering one per visit will take us a dozen visits at least. We used to love the "leed flowers" at Fortune in DC,

[deangold]

After mostly having soups, we tried a few more complex dishes:

A casserole of clam soup, bok choi, someother kind of choi and slivered ginger was superb cooked in a ceramic pot. Simple, revivifying on a nice where my viv need re-fy'ing.

Sizzling platter lamb - I never know if sizzling platter is just a way to impress folk who have never been to Asia or the real deal but they have pushed them to us several times. In a lengthy discussion of the lamb with bean curd skin casserole, this one was offered up as a recommendation. We are now glad it was. The sauce was sprightly and not over applied, just enough to coat the meat. There were leeks and green onions and some spiced. The dish starts out sweet int he sizzling phase and as the sugars caramelize turned darker and more complex in flavor. If this be dumbing down, I can live with it. Our usual waitress said that maybe next time we should try the lam & bean curd skin casserole with lamb skin in it so maybe this one was a test.

By the way, they offer steamed pork bins which are incredible and steamed sesame balls which are a little less so at 12 midnight but are probably amazing in the morning when freshly made and not nuked in the microwave.

[mallomar]

Going to New Kam Fong, looking for suggestions on what to order. I can't eat spicy or fatty/oily foods. I like beef, pork, chicken and seafood (except squid, eel, mussels). Don't eat innards. I am particularly fond of shrimp.

On my first visit, I had the fabulous shrimp wonton soup, but the soup was VERY oily and made me sick although I didn't finish it. I had a noodle dish that was just okay -- bits of barbecued pork and veg stir-fried with thin noodles. It also had shrimp, but they were tiny little ordinary ones.

Suggestions?

[deangold]

The food at NKF is pretty oily by nature. Try to explain your restrictions and see what they say, but the language barrier can be strong at times.

Try the pork with pickled cabbage wor mein, kingdom mushrooms with green leaf for a coupe of lighter dishes.

[mallomar]

We had a very nice dinner at NKF. I did mention my oily food restriction and was assured that the dishes we ordered were not oily (and they weren't). I had the wonton soup again -- this time it wasn't oily at all (maybe last time someone oiled it up by mistake). And oh, those wontons!

We also had an order of steamed dumplings, which were good and came with a nice dipping sauce (not too firey for me). For main dishes, we ordered triple delight (the hubster's favorite dish), a dish that I think was called eight treasure duck, and shrimp with scrambled egg. (I ordered the last because many, many years ago, I had wonderful "shrimp with egg" in Chicago and had never seen it on a menu since.) We also got an order of Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce.

Everything was good, and we left the place fat and happy (and with leftovers!). All that -- including drinks -- for $60. Totally awesome!

I wasn't brave enough to try the pork with pickled cabbage or the mushrooms with green leaves -- maybe next time! And I also want to try something with more of the barbecued pork -- there was some in the duck dish, and it was yummy.

[Chris Cunningham]

Have never been here, but it sounds good....I will go pimarily because of the name Kam Fong...which was the name of the actor on HAWAII FIVE-O who played Chin Ho Kelly There's a lot to be said for a name and if he's good enough for McGarret, its good enough for me

[BookGuy]

I was there last night and everything was excellent, particularly the Lobster 2 and the chicken lo mein. As a test for new restaurants, I had shrimp egg foo yung, a simple dish, and it was fine with a lot of healthy-sixed shrimp. For some reason, although the spareribs were meaty, they seemed bland as did the hot and sour soup which wasn't "hot" enough. Still, it is a nice place with parking front and back very close to Georgia Avenue.

[DonRocks]

healthy-sixed shrimp.

As opposed to eighty-sixed shrimp. <------------- This is why people don't post more. Furthermore, I don't know why I even think it's funny. Still on first cup of coffee.

[mdjordy]

Great meal here last night, large group of 8 including one in a high chair.

The shrimp dumplings in hot oil are fantastic- whole shrimp inside of a thin skin sitting in a pool or red oil loaded with garlic and scalions. The leftover sauce was amazing on rice. Large portion of perhaps 10 dumplings.

Main dishes included roast pig on rice. Great, juicy with crspy skin-served with bottle of sweetish sauce. The whole pig is hanging in the case. Lotus root with veggies-very good, fairly mild. Salt and Pepper fried flounder- not a drop of oil full of flavor with tiny slices of hot peppers and fried garlic.. Prok Z-Fu noodles- we get this everytime. Noodles are the perfect chewy texture, must be made in house...some of the noodles could be 2 feet in length. A couple of other dishes I can't remember.

The staff is so friendly, so happy for non-Asians to be trying their menu, beyond the standard American junk. Perhaps it was the baby, but they brought over a bunch of buns for the table to try. Also sweet rice dough...which was great.

I hope they are making it...such nice people, clean restaurant, and interesting menu.

[DC Deb]

For lunch, they have a "three dishes one soup" special for $19.95. You can choose from over 50 dishes, including very authentic Chinese dishes. The dishes can feed two hearty eaters or three average eaters. If you want, you can add one more dish for around $6.

The special runs every day, including weekends. Can't beat this deal.

[xcanuck]

For lunch, they have a "three dishes one soup" special for $19.95. You can choose from over 50 dishes, including very authentic Chinese dishes. The dishes can feed two hearty eaters or three average eaters. If you want, you can add one more dish for around $6.

The special runs every day, including weekends. Can't beat this deal.

We actually got this yesterday for lunch and it's a really great deal. The food at New Kam Fong has always been much better than the average Chinese joint (but I can't say it's superlative), the menu is varied with some very unusual options, and the service is excellent.