I have passed by Heung Fa Chun Sweet House countless times and decided it was time to stop in. They have a small menu of little snacks, many of which are desserts. The very first item on the menu is sweet do-fu dessert. That seemed harmless enough. And for $1.25, I had to grab one.
It was the thought of a pork lunch special that brought me to Chung King Garden. The extensive menu is trimmed down for lunch time, but even their lunch special menu has tons of options, all for $6 or $7 dollars. Chung King Garden is one of the bigger restaurants in Chinatown and the service is fast, so you will likely be able to get seated and get served quickly. Expect Szechuan fare, though the last few pages of the menu are devoted to “American Chinese food”. If you are reading this site, you are probably somebody who knows to stay away from that section.
For the end of Passover, I had noodles on the brain. It seemed about time to finally check out Nan Zhou- Chinatown’s destination for hand-pulled noodle soup (recommended by Profiled Lunchers Earl and Ashley). Besides a few appetizers (think pig ears and tendon) the menu is all soup. So you better believe they know what they are doing. The soups are as follows: broth with wonton or beef/fish/meat balls, shaved noodles, or hand drawn noodles. Heat wave be damned, I decided on the beef rib soup with the hand drawn noodles, listed as “Braise Ox Spare Ribs Noodle Soup.” This set me back $5.75 plus I threw in a fried egg for an extra dollar.
Empress Garden certainly doesn’t stand out from any other Chinatown joints based on looks. Though the signage indicates Mandarin and Szechuan style food, they also serve Taiwanese dishes, making Empress Garden more unique. The crowded menu shows off countless preparations for pork, beef, seafood, chicken, and noodles. A good part of the menu is written in Mandarin and includes items that are not offered on the English menu. A Chowhound poster graciously provided some translations. My waitress was very helpful at confirming I was ordering the dishes that I had in mind. Most entrees are 5- 8 bucks and make a nice sized and cheap lunch; lunch specials are available during the week that come with rice and soup. I tried a lunch special along with some irresistible items off the regular menu.
Sakura is one of my favorite places to eat in Philadelphia. Though best known for their xiao long bao (dumplings filled with soup) they offer so many other knock-out dishes. The restaurant is newer and cleaner than many other Chinatown counterparts, so it can appeal to a broader audience and serve as a safe introduction for those nervous about Ctown dining. Sakura serves Japanese food as well as Chinese; I am normally suspicious of combo joints, but Sakura pulls off both rather flawlessly.
Sakura’s lunch specials run during the week starting at $5.50 and come with white or brown rice and a choice of eggdrop, wonton, or hot and sour soup. I highly recommend the “Eight treasures in spicy sauce”, which I mostly ordered because I like the name and with no description of which treasures were involved, I was excited to be surprised. Read more »
Yummy Yummy would be easy to pass by, that is unless a batch of waffles is cooking up, because you will be completely powerless to resist that smell. And this is a good thing really, because inside you can pick up a few tasty snacks to make up your own dim sum lunch to take back to the office.
Yummy Yummy gets dumplings and other snacks from the Chinatown Noodle Factory across the street. All of the small dishes are packaged to make transporting them easy. If you are lucky, you can catch them while they are hot. Otherwise, reheat in the microwave using the wet-paper-towel method* so nothing dries out.
Check out some of Yummy Yummy’s yummy options after the jump…
*wet-paper-towel method involves draping a wet paper towel on top of all of the items before popping in the microwave
Posted at 11:24 am, February 8th, 2010 under Chinatown.
This weekend, the little Shanghai spot near the Chinatown bus stop updated their menu. Dim Sum Garden is maybe most known for their xiao long bao (soup dumplings) but I have found them not soupy enough for me. Their handmade noodles, on the other hand, are outstanding. You have a choice between noodles in soup or “dry”, and while I am a soup chick, the dry saucy noodles are where its at.
Posted at 10:31 am, February 1st, 2010 under Chinatown.
