perrik

I think Cafe Atlantico's "dim sum" falls outside the scope of this thread (and certainly outside the standard dim sum budget), but what the heck, is anyone interested in planning such an adventure?

The "carrots" were filled with custard, and they were almost too pretty to eat - but boy, were they ever tasty... I enjoyed the tofu in sugar syrup, but we need to ask for extra bowls and spoons next time. Let us not forget the savory dishes! The tripe was lightly spicy, not at all bland or rubbery. I think Dean and I polished off the whole platter of clams with black bean sauce (were those Manila clams?). HEOTB's char sui is a bit overly sweet (New Fortune really sets the standard for BBQ pork), but it worked very well for the the triangular char sui pastries (we should have gotten more!). I just wish they'd add more vegetable options to the repetoire. Fake carrots don't count. Oh, yes, I forgot - another new (to us) dish was hollowed-out squash filled with a shrimp mixture. Or was it a pork mixture? Or both? I didn't get a chance to try it, but it certainly disappeared. To me, the only disappointment was the steamed spareribs with black bean. The ribs themselves were nicely tender, but there wasn't a lot of black bean flavor present.

Okay, then unless anyone has a major conflict, we'll go with noon on the 18th. Just as at our previous visit, the quality and variety were excellent. As porcupine noted, we went overboard on sweets! We'll schedule another visit after we slake our craving for New Fortune's char sui and crispy-edged turnip cakes.

Fortune serves dim sum from 11am to 3pm, so either time should be good. Does anyone have a strong preference for either noon or 1pm? I have a slight preference for 1pm, but noon is fine as well.

Okay, so far we have five for Sunday - porcupine, are you going to be there as well?

Bumping with a reminder... we're going to meet up at Hollywood East On The Boulevard next Sunday (5 March) at 1pm. For those who haven't been there, driving directions are available on their website. Caution - we will be at Hollywood East On The Boulevard (University Blvd between Georgia Ave and Viers Mill Rd), not the original Hollywood East on Price Ave. There is parking next to the restaurant, metered street parking, and two public lots (see map for locations). The lot next to HEOTB and the smaller public lot across the street are usually full, but lot #34 has tons of elbow room and it's only a 1.5 block walk. There's no parking fee on Sundays. Newbies and veterans alike are welcome! If you're planning to attend, please post or PM me so we have a vague headcount. I'll try to get there first as usual - look for a short woman in an orange hat. Our first HEOTB outing was a little more expensive than our other dim sum ventures - I believe it was $18 per person for a rather immense quantity of food. Are Saturdays acceptable to the other Fortune attendees? How about 18 March? I'll also toss out a tentative date for a return to New Fortune - 9 April. Or we could go 16 April to relieve those IRS-induced stomach pains...

When we were at China Garden for dim sum, a neighboring table (perhaps wisely) ordered from the menu instead of the carts - one of the platters on their table was a whole roasted duck garnished with a generous helping of pastel prawn crackers.

I wasn't sure I was actually going to attend the Fortune gathering, but one look at the menu and... wow. We need to choose a date. HEOTB is scheduled for March 5 - when shall we investigate Fortune? I'm free on all Sundays for the next two months, as far as I know. We can do this on a Saturday if that fits everyone's schedule better.

The MontCo Dim Sum Comparo has now morphed into the Metro DC Dim Sum Comparo with this first outing to China Garden in Rosslyn. It was... all right. As everyone could attest to, finding the place and then finding parking was a wee challenge. The restaurant is very conveniently located about 1 block from the Rosslyn Metro station, in a highly visible building (the Gannett building with the WJLA-TV news ticker). There is free underground parking in the Gannett building's garage. However, this is a very popular restaurant, and there was a lot of stopping and waiting and blocking aisles going on. Once you manage to get past the vehicular mess and park, look for an exit to the shops level. Follow the noise. rbh warned us to get there early, and this was very wise advice indeed. The +1 and I arrived 45 minutes before our planned dim sum time, and it took a little over that long before there was a large table available. The restaurant looks quite large inside. They can handle banquets of up to 600 attendees, so its size is comparable to New Fortune. However, it's popular with Chinese tour groups - as we drove up we saw a bus unloading its hungry passengers - and parties of all sizes were in for long waits. The table arrangement at China Garden can be unfortunate. There were some large tables placed with no easy aisle access, and we were (alas) seated at one of them. It took a while before carts threaded their way to our table, and I think some of the food reflected the odd traffic flow. We were quickly supplied with the basic accoutrements, but food was slow in coming by at first. The cart traffic overall did not seem as plentiful here than at the other places we've sampled - we learned quickly to grab several orders of whatever came by because who knows if that item would ever come around again? Example: har gow and char sui bao are two of the absolute standard dishes that every dim sum place has. I saw each item come by our table just once in the 90 minutes or so that we were there. There were fleeting glimpses and tantalizing rumors of sweet items, but it wasn't until the very end of our meal that the glimpse turned into reality. Some of the items we got were lukewarm, and some seemed to have seen better days (like the string beans). Can't blame the time of day for this - China Garden serves dim sum from 11:30am to 3:00pm, so we were there at the middle of service and the place was absolutely packed. Rapid turnover should have ensured some level of freshness, but it just wasn't there. But what of the food, you may ask. It was certainly not bad - we're not talking Good Fortune here - but very little was all that impressive. There was a steamed dumpling filled with veggies like chopped baby corn and mushrooms that I rather liked. There was some love shown for the stuffed tofu and the shrimp/chive dumplings. We were lucky enough to get the egg custard tarts while they were still quite warm - the crust was light and flaky, and the filling was custardy with just a touch of sweetness. This was easily the best dish of the meal, and it was certainly the best egg custard tart I've ever had either here or in SF. I thought most of the other dishes were pretty pedestrian - certainly acceptable, but not worth a detour. The har gow wrapper was thick and yet too fragile, the steamed spareribs with black bean sauce were lacking in black bean flavor. Not once did I see my beloved cheong fan making the rounds, but perhaps that's just as well. Tendons and chicken feet were available on the carts (not bad but nothing special), but tripe had to be specifically ordered. The worst part of the meal was the table next to ours - they had ordered dishes off the menu, and it all looked so good! I spotted a whole fried fish and a whole roast duck. Darn. With tip, our meal was $15 per person. I'd rank China Garden next to Silver Fountain - worth going if you're in the area and hungry for dim sum, but not worth a special trip. It may say something that we spent the last half of the meal discussing when we should schedule our next visit to a better dim sum place.

Sorry you couldn't make it! It's not too hard to find the building, but figuring out the parking and entrance was a definite challenge. You might have gotten the better meal at WF anyway - China Garden was okay, but very little struck us as particularly memorable. Fabulous custard tarts, though. rbh, thank you so much for suggesting that someone sign in ahead of time! I got to China Garden at 12:15 and it was a madhouse. I had our group put on the list right away, and we went in around 1:10. Before we had wiped away the mess from this meal, we already had our eyes (well, stomachs) looking toward the next outings. There are two dim sum ventures to be scheduled for the near future. 1. The next edition of the NoVa Dim Sum Comparo will be at Fortune, date unknown. I've never been there and am totally unfamiliar with the parking/crowd situation. Any Fortune veterans who can lend a hand with planning? 2. The MontCo group has decided that we have no choice but to return to Hollywood East On The Boulevard and New Fortune with all due speed. Our current plan is to visit HEOTB on 5 March 2006 at 1pm. (don't worry Daniel, we'll schedule another visit after your soccer commitment is over) As usual, all are welcome! Post here or PM me if you're interested in attending. Also, for future visits, we should choose a group name for the waiting list so late arrivals can find us. It should be distinctive but easy enough to spell so a hostess without a strong grasp of English can jot it down and call it out. (but in deference to our valued leader's wishes, the group name should not directly reference his own moniker) I don't know why, but "Pineapple" leapt to mind immediately.

Table for nine, groovy. See y'all there in a couple hours!

China Garden lineup so far... perrik +1 porcupine goldenticket StephenB ScotteeM Would anyone else like to join us? All are welcome, lurkers included!

There's parking info earlier in this thread, and you can see a map at China Garden's website. We're planning to use Metro (about 1 block from the Rosslyn station). And there's plenty of room for everyone - please join us!

Will do! But now who's going to eat all the sesame balls? We'll set up the Jesse Wong Hong Kong trip in April so you won't have to miss out.

A reminder - the Dim Sundays group makes its first excursion to NoVa on Sunday, 19 February. We will meet at China Garden in Rosslyn at 1pm. Please post in this thread by 10am Sunday morning if you're planning to attend - I plan to get to the restaurant around 12:45 to put us on the table list, and will need an approximate number of diners by then. Look for a very short woman wearing a bright orange hat. (And hey, I love pears!)

Yes! The Giant in Calverton had that back in the 1970s, and I always loved going grocery shopping with my mom because of the endless parade of grocery bags. Very cool. They did bring back the big barrel o' pickles, so maybe they'll reinstall the conveyor belt as well. One can only dream the little dreams...

Egads. The roasted fish tasted fine when fresh at the restaurant, but when I reheated the leftovers I could see the huge difference between the previous version and the one we got last Friday. (bear in mind that I had eaten an entire bowl of spicy & sour baby wontons before tackling the fish at the restaurant, so my delicate-meter was offline) There was more breading than fish, and the fish quality was not what it had been. Weird texture, too, like the compressed contents of a fish stick. Can't blame the microwave for that, since I reheated the fish in the oven... The rabbit and wontons were still very good, so I'll certainly return when we're in the area. China Star rebounded, so we'll see if Temptasian can also stay the Sichuan course post-Chang.

Leftover spicy diced rabbit from Temptasian. Why can't breakfast always be this good?

Rocklands moved into the space formerly occupied by i.Cream - which also served bubble tea (not as good as Ten Ren's) and Asian-style shaved ice. It's more or less next to Oriental Market.

That you're a good speller?

Occasionally I am dragged out to the wilds of south Alexandria to keep my husband company as he fiddles with computers. My reward for today's outing was, as usual, a visit to Temptasian. We ordered the spicy diced rabbit (which really should be renamed Delicious Cold Chunks O' Bunny), spicy & sour baby wontons, the legendary roasted fish, beef stew in hot pot, and some spinach sauteed in garlic. I love those wontons. They're a big red bowl of fiery sour slippery wonderfulness, well worth the inevitable stained blouse. We'd never tried the beef stew before - nifty, Chinese pot roast. Hmm. We just got back a half hour ago. Is it too soon to dip into the leftovers?

I'm in, solo.

Sounds like a scenic trip. So when shall we go explore the menu? I'm fully booked most of next week, but am free this weekend. The +1 and I are hitting TemptAsian on Friday afternoon for an early dinner, but hey, I'd eat Chinese food every single day given the choice...

I've been meaning to get over there to try their soup dumplings. So... lunch, anyone?

Ah, very nice. Now, are they actually planning to serve food there, or am I not trendy enough to be blessed with text on any of the menu pages? At least they got that right. Vegetables are sensual. People are sensuous. Does the chef still want to show me his cucumber? Cut the crap and get me a drink...