Midtown Lunch

At Xiao Guan Garden, things are efficient: boom- you are seated, boom- your menus, tea, and peanuts are on your table, boom- they give you unnecessary forks. No nonsense is enjoyable every so often. When I realized other tables were getting a different menu I wondered what I was missing out on. But I will never know since the menu was all in Chinese characters. When the “white people” menu has frog on it, you can’t feel too bad about ordering from it. And  I managed to have a nice little meal regardless.

I was surprised to discover that steamed pork dumplings are actually shui mai. They were bursting with pork, but looking a little too uniform to be homemade.

The salt baked pork ($9.95) came out with garnishes of orange slices and shallots. The pieces of chops were covered in the perfect amount of salt. And while I enjoyed them, they are not as good  as the ones at Empress Garden.

Towards the end of my meal I saw some snails pass by, now I know what they are hiding.

Xiao Guan Garden, 917 Race St(@ 9th St) , 215 925-9388