PrintForget Canal Street, the Real Dim Summing Is in Bensonhurst
Our pal Zach passionately declares: "World Tong is the best dim sum in New York City. And it’s not in Manhattan’s Chinatown, or Flushing or even in Sunset Park, Brooklyn’s under-appreciated Chinatown. It’s in Bensonhurst, and despite being an overly crowded, small-scale dim sum parlor, the quantity of food that flies out of their kitchen is more astounding then some places five times its size." Read Robyn's review here.
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7 Comments:
It doesn't seem like a blog called Brooklyn Based would even accept anything in Queens as an answer!
kathryn at 4:16PM on 01/27/09
World Tong is not in Bensonhurst. World Tong is in Borough Park.
I don't know why people always get this wrong. But if you go to Bensonhurst looking for World Tong, you're gonna get very lost.
Sneakeater at 6:30PM on 01/27/09
Isn't that like saying "that place on 47th Street between 8th & 9th Ave. is in Midtown West, not Hell's Kitchen you idiot!"
As long as people have the address I don't think they'll be getting lost :-)
Zach Brooks at 6:46PM on 01/27/09
This person's saying World Tong is the best place to have dim sum and offers a photo of xiao long bao as evidence? Oh c'mon! Xiao long bao is Shanghainese - northern China. This tells me nothing. It's like saying that I found the best place for arroz con pollo and I give you a picture of mofongo. Different cuisines, folks.
Dim sum is classic Cantonese. If he going to say World Tong's the best place to have dim sum, he should judge the place on it's ha gaow (crystal shrimp dumplings). Many dim sum lovers use ha gaow as the benchmark used to judge most places. It's deceptive - a few simple ingredients rely on the chef's talent and skill to make them into a delicious dumpling.
Sorry, Flushing is where it's at. Jade Asian for newbies and New Tung Yi Fung for the hardcore old schoolers.
Gastro888 at 7:10PM on 01/27/09
@Gastro888 - I gave them a bunch of photos, and the soup dumplings is the one they chose to run. It's not my fault...
That being said, I don't judge a dim sum place on the strength of its har gow, because I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of quantity for quality. I like places that offer a lot of different things, because after going to dim sum for many years, in many cities, I get a little bored of the same things week in week out. So whenever I find a place that is doing something interesting (but obviously still maintains some quality) and different, it gets me excited. Obviously not everyone uses the same criteria to judge dim sum places, but that's why I tried to explain the criteria I was using in the article.
What I love about World Tong, and I explained in the article, is that it is a really small place (which I usually tend to not like, because of the smaller selection of items) which sends out an amount of food on par with some of the large places. So you get the quantity, without sacrificing quality. It's a beautiful thing. The soup dumplings were just one example of a thing they do that you don't see very often at dim sum places...
As for Jade Asian, I liked it when it was Gum Fong- but haven't been back seen the change. Is it better/worse/same? And it sounds like New Tung Yi Fung is a smaller place... but I'll definitely check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!
(Alright... now I've spent way too much time replying to this. Can you tell I like talking about dim sum?)
Zach Brooks at 9:32AM on 01/28/09
@ Zach - My bad, I thought you chose the picture to post. I didn't realize the editor chose it for you. The editor needs a talking to and not you! :)
I agree, smaller is better for dim sum places. The large, stadium like restaurants usually have poor dim sum. By the time the cart gets to the halfway mark, the food's lost it's appeal. Dim sum dregs are a sad, sad thing.
The soup dumplings aren't usually on a dim sum menu because, well, it's not what they specialize in. It's a Johnny-come-lately to the dim sum scene. Old school dim sum houses aren't going to have that on the menu.
Jade Asian is as good as the old Gum Fung was but cleaned up. I recommend it for people new to the dim sum scene. It's far better than East Buffet. Blech.
New Tung Yi Fung is across the street from Gala Manor. It's a two story restaurant. The strategy is to get there before 11am and score a table on the first floor near the kitchen. It's old school HK style - you gotta know how to make your presence known with the host so the pushy elders don't snag your table. :)
Gastro888 at 9:48AM on 01/28/09
East Buffet is *gross*. I've tried the straight up Dim Sum and the buffet, and thought it was pretty mediocre. (And this is coming from somebody who looooves all you can eat buffets.)
If you can find a good one, I actually prefer the gigantic places. There was one in Boston I went to every weekend for about two years, and never got sick of. It was so good... and in Monterrey Park, CA I went to one really big place that was amazing. The perfect combo of quanity and quality. It makes me want to move back to L.A. Nothing that good here in NYC.
Zach Brooks at 4:14PM on 01/28/09