I dashed back down the stairs when I saw someone coming out of the kitchen, and back into the dining room.
#JADE GARDEN SEATTLE DIM SUM HOURS CRACK#
I stopped for a minute on the way down the stairs and watched through the crack of visible door as two pairs of hands with an invisible body scooped up meat from a mountainous pile and, with mechanically perfect rhythm, created an endless stream of dumplings. The stairs up to the bathroom went right past the room where most of the dumplings were being assembled. The dining room was loud, and all the tables were packed to the gills with people passing around small dishes of fried and steamed treats. To get a better view of the restaurant, I decided to go to the bathroom, which was in the back, behind the kitchen. It was far from the usual reserved American Chinese restaurant experience. They ate and drank tea, but they also laughed loudly, shouted, and ate a lot.
#JADE GARDEN SEATTLE DIM SUM HOURS HOW TO#
I did manage to pick up a few things from the women how to eat certain things, and more importantly how to act at dim sum.
A few times they tired to give us some pointers, but their gestures couldn’t make up for the fact that they were speaking Chinese. Normally, I think my chopstick skills are pretty good, but with added pressure I felt like I was dropping things a little more often than usual. The har gow, my favorite dim sum dish, was a little disappointing with a thick, tough wrapper, but that’s only nit picking.Įvery few minutes, I would catch a glance of the women sitting adjacent to us watching our techniques closely. It was intensely crispy on the outside, with a smooth, creamy texture inside, and delicious shrimp. The fried eggplant filled with shrimp was unlike anything I’d had before. Our table quickly filled up with little dumplings, mostly filled with fresh shrimp that was still whole inside the wrappers, rather than a mystery mush. If I was nervous at all, I forgot about it completely when the dim sum carts started to roll around. It was that awkward enough being the only white, English speaking people in the restaurant, but being seated with a group of non English speaking Chinese ladies made it all that harder. And then two more people sat down on our other side. Not soon after, two other women joined her. But after a waiter came and took the dirty dishes away (using one of their napkins to clean the table – a little gross) she was still sitting there. I figured she must have been from the group who had used the dirty dishes. An elderly Chinese woman sat across the round table from us, seemingly unfazed. We sat down in front of someone else’s dirty dishes – and someone else. We were lead to a table that looked far too big for our group of three it looked like a table for eight or nine. The walls were adorned with the usual red and gold engravings, and giant mirrors covered two walls, making the room seem enormous. I wasn’t sure exactly how we were supposed to be seated.Ī few minutes later she said something, and we were quickly being ushered into the dining room. The woman asked how many were in our group, and wrote something in Chinese on a piece of paper and left right away. We walked in to an awkward corridor that didn’t reach the ceiling, exposing the dining room, and made our way through throngs of old Chinese women up to the front of the line.
All of the reviews I’d read online said it was some of the best and most authentic dim sum in San Francisco.Īnother thing the reviews said was that the décor was, to say the least, a little less than nice. Ben House – San Francisco This was the last of our Chinese food in San Francisco, and it promised to be the best. Ben House in San Francisco I wrote a year ago after a trip to San Francisco will have to tide you over. Expect a review of House of Hong sometime in the next week or so. I'm moving into a new place this week (close to the ID/Chinatown = more dim sum!!) but I currently have little-no computer access.
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