Lunch #85: Dim Sum King

The fireproof Bush Hotel has done some remodeling lately and has a couple of new tenants. One on the NW corner is a small Dim Sum cafe with a large new sign. Today five MSG150 lunchers headed out with the "Seattle sunshine" dampening our clothes but not our hunger to check out this new spot

Dim Sum King, Seattle
Address: 409 Maynard Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98104
Cuisine: Chinese: Dim Sum
Average rating: 3 chopsticks
Lunch date: 1/11/2010 @ 11:50:00
Time taken to be seated: 0 minutes
Time to take order: 0 minutes
Time for food to arrive: 0 minutes
Total lengh of meal: 32 minutes
Chopstix quality: Plastic Fork
Do they use MSG?:
Where is the owner/chef from?:
Number of tables: 6
Number of occupied tables: 3 (50%)
Number of business lunch tables: 1 (33%)
Number of "local" tables: 2 (66%)
Healthcode Score: 0
Links: Yelp!, Urbanspoon

Luncher: Geary

Lunch: Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf, Chicken Foot, Onion Bun, and various other Dim Sum favorites. - $5.25
Rating:

Geary's Review

Dim Sum King is the smallest Dim Sum restaurant in the ID and the only one with counter only service. There was only one other person in front of us so it was barley enough time to figure out what and how to order. There's a lunch special that includes rice or chow mein and two choices of Dim Sum. I chose to order al la carte.

I had seen a giant Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf go by already so I ordered one for my self. As I was the last of our group to order I poked around and tried to uncover items that others hadn't already ordered. I went with a Chicken Foot and various other rolls and dumplings. I paid a very modest $5.25 for my haul, grabbed a cup of the dark black tea and headed back to sit down at the cafeteria style seating.

The Onion Bun was delicious -- although I've never had an onion bun I didn't love. The Shu Mai were big and tasty. The large Ginger Dumpling was cold and a bit chewy. The Chicken Foot was fine if your into that kind of thing, but also a bit cold. The most impressive part of the meal was the Sticky Rice. It was HUGE. For a buck fifty (the same price as beer nuts) you could easily fill up on this alone. That reminds me, what's the difference between Sticky Rice at the Dim Sum King and deer nuts? The Sticky Rice is a buck fifty; deer nuts are under a buck.

Luncher: Emmett

Lunch: Sticky Rice, Sui Mai, Shrimp Dumpling, Pork Pot Sticker, Steamed BBQ Dumpling, Chicken wings - $6.50
Rating:

Emmett's Review

This place gets a +1 for awkwardness. There is a small storefront, and very few tables. We were unsure if we should sit or head up to the buffet. I am vaguely reminded of trips to Morrison's Cafeteria with Grandma.

We soon get the swing of things, and I start barking out what looks good - chicken wings hmm yes, Sui Mai, some shrimp, oh and how bout some rice, good. The Sui Mai came out of a massive round container containing perhaps 50-75 dumplings. Perhaps we should come back and go party style on one of those suckers. The Sticky Rice was massive, and alright. The Sui Mai were fairly basic, slightly less good than its competitors. The wings were not super fresh, but tasty with a little hot sauce. The Steamed BBQ Pork Dumpling was fresh and quite good. The Pork Pot sticker was forgettable. The Shrimp Dumpling had nice flavor, but the dumpling shell was kind of tough.

What this place lacks in food quality they make up for in price and quickness. You could be in and out with a good sized meal in under 10 minutes for under $5. I may return for a quick fix.

Luncher: Adam

Lunch: Lunch Special: Chow Mein, Shu Mai, and Fried Meat Turnover - $4.99
Rating:

Adam's Review

We have an unofficial "8 hour rule." That is, don't write your review until you (and your body) have had 8 hours to process your thoughts and food. We had lunch at noon, and on the bus ride home at 7PM... my stomach did a flip. I'm not directly blaming Dim Sum King (DSK), but I don't believe that these two points are unrelated.

My chow mein would've been perfect for drunk food: It's cheap, it's greasy, and it's fast. For lunch, it makes my stomach sad. My Shu Mai was OK, and if forced back to DSK I would order them. My Fried Meat Turnover was cold, undercooked, overly-doughy, and lacking meat.

Maybe I ordered the wrong thing, but I don't think I'm headed back.

Luncher: Dave

Lunch: Lunch Special: Chow Mein, Shu Mai, Dumplings, + Sticky Rice - $5.49
Rating:

Dave's Review

not sure i'd call this 'dim sum', strictly speaking, but it was pretty plentiful and cheap. as i'm sure others will mention, the sticky rice alone could just about be a meal; add in a couple of shu mai and dumplings at $.50 a pop and you've just had a $2.50 lunch. everything tasted good; the shu mai and sticky rice were quite good. the chow mein was typical chinese steam-table chow mein, which was fine but probably superfluous. i'm a little torn -- on paper, tasty and inexpensive sounds great, but in reality it was a little uninspiring. it's certainly not a replacement for real dim sum, but i could see going back.

Luncher: Al

Lunch: Onion Bun, BBQ Pork Bun, Dumpling, 2 Shu Mai, Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf, & Tea - $4.99
Rating:

Al's Review

Super fast dim sum and soooo cheap. I didn't care I felt ill afterwards.

Dim Sum King Photos

Dim Sum King


Dim Sum King


Dim Sum King Menu


Ordering at the Counter


Display Counter


Dave's Lunch


Adam's Lunch


Emmett's Lunch


Dim Sum Close-up


1/2 of Al's Lunch


1/2 of Al's Lunch


Geary's Lunch


Sticky Rice Exposed

Lunch #75: New Hong Kong Restaurant

Though not complete with Japantown, we were dismayed to find our next joint, Tsukushinbo, closed that day. Intrepidly we proceeded into the vast unknown, eastward up our old friend Jackson, under the freeway and into our central station: the Pacific Rim Center. This place is a veritable cornucopia of all things Pacific. We passed the hair salon, travel agency, to our mark: the New Hong Kong Restaurant. The adventure begins.

New Hong Kong Restaurant, Seattle
Address: 900 S Jackson St, Seattle, WA, 98104
Cuisine: Chinese: Dim Sum
Average rating: 3.5 chopsticks
Lunch date: 4/37/2009 @ 12:00:00
Time taken to be seated: 0 minutes
Time to take order: 0 minutes
Time for food to arrive: 0 minutes
Total lengh of meal: 27 minutes
Chopstix quality: Nice Plastic
Do they use MSG?: Yes
Where is the owner/chef from?: Vietnam, but ethnically Chinese
Number of tables: 35
Number of occupied tables: 4 (11%)
Number of business lunch tables: 4 (100%)
Number of "local" tables: 8 (200%)
Healthcode Score: 10
Links: Yelp!, Urbanspoon

Family Style Dishes

• Tofu Shrimp Ball
• Tofu Shrimp Roll
• Fried Shrimp Ball with Sweet Mayo Sauce
• BBQ Pork Bun
• Eggplant with Shrimp
• Shrimp and Cilantro Dumpling
• Shu Mai
• Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf
• Pea Vines with Garlic

Luncher: Adam

Lunch: Family Style - $11.50
Rating:

Adam's Review

More Dim Sum! We haven't had Dim Sum recently... so this was pretty exciting. I've heard that one good indicator of a Dim Sum restaurant is the number of Chinese people. This place was relatively empty, so I was a little scared to begin with, but we have a mission... so we sat down and ordered some friggin Dim Sum!

Hey Hey! The food is warm, fresh and pretty tasty... and because there were fewer people we got good service with the carts. We were always within eye contact with the server which made ordering round 2 easier. The fried food was crispy, hot, and tasty. The sticky rice was tasty, but kind of small. The Shu Mai were good. In general, everything was pretty danged good. Nothing is sticking out in my mind as "head and shoulders" delicious, but all of it was good.

The bill came, and after two rounds and only a moderate amount of Dim Sum... the bill was $11.50 per person, which I felt was pretty high.

Good food. Doesn't meet the gold standard of Jade Garden. Fast Fresh and good.

Luncher: Geary

Lunch: Family Style - $11.50
Rating:

Geary's Review

I really don't understand this building. It looks like a parking garage from the street. The restaurant is very nice inside with more of an upscale feel like Ocean City and less of a lived in feel like Jade Garden. There were lots of open tables (not a great sign) and we were seated right away. We started with some shrimp rolls and eggplant. They were good, but not very hot. There appeared to only be two or three carts serving the entire restaurant. The steam cart arrived soon afterwards and turned out to be more successful. We added Shu Mai, Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf, various dumplings and put in for an order of Pea Vine Greens. The Sticky Rice was out of this world. It was the best sticky rice we have had in our tour. It was chocked full of meat and shrooms and was moist, steamy, and full of flavor. The Shu Mai and the Shrimp and Cilantro Dumplings were also stand outs. The Pea Vine Greens were great as well, however I have never met a pea vine green I didn't like.

Luncher: Emmett

Lunch: Family Style - $11.50
Rating:

Emmett's Review

This place was a trip. Big sign! New building. Very lively as we enter. And we're charging up Jackson now, on our way to Little Saigon, so we're giddy with anticipation at what we might find.

Overall - expensive, not too varied, but adequate dim sum. I didn't find the flavors or variety as compelling as either Jade Garden or Harbor City. I put this more in line with House of Hong. To be sure, it was a satisfying meal, but not displacing Jade in my book.

Luncher: Dave

Lunch: Family Style - $11.50
Rating:

Dave's Review

So, there are enough dim sum places in the ID that to me picking a place is all about tradeoffs. Overall, the food was quite good. Everything fried was crispy, everything dumpling-shaped was dumplingy, all the basics were spot on. In New Hong Kong's favor: the pea vines were great. Of course, it's (early) spring, so they'd better be. Also notable was the eggplant with shrimp, which was nice and sweet. Downsides (especially compared with jade garden, which is kind of the gold standard): price was a bit higher than I remember Jade Garden being. Also, this may have just been bad ordering on our part, but we didn't get any of the big thick rice-noodle-wrapped meat rolls, which are one of my favorite standard dim sum items.

Still, everything we had was good and there was plenty of variety. Would I come back? yeah, pretty happily. Would I consistently choose New Hong Kong over jade garden? that's not so clear. Is that partly because it's a long uphill walk to get there and I'm lazy? yes. yes it is.

Luncher: Ross

Lunch: Family Style - $11.50
Rating:

Ross's Review

Overall, I’d say it was fine dim sum. I wouldn’t avoid it, but didn’t think it was worth seeking out. There were a few very good plates, but overall it was neutral. That said, I haven’t had dim sum in years, so I wouldn’t trust me on this one.

Luncher: Jared

Lunch: Family Style - $11.50
Rating:

New Hong Kong Restaurant Photos

New Hong Kong Restaurant


New Hong Kong Restaurant


Pacific Rim Center (not a parking garage as you may have assumed)


Tofu Shrimp Ball, Tofu Shrimp Roll, Fried Shrimp Ball with Sweet Mayo Sauce


BBQ Pork Bun


Shu Mai


Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf


Shrimp with Cilantro (half eaten)


Pea Vines with Garlic (half eaten)

Lunch #65: Harbor City

Last summer we got word that Harbor City had changed hands and was reopening as a dim sum joint. Our previous lunch there was good and we were not overly excited to have yet another dim sum place to visit. I've lost count, but I think we can no longer count the ID dim sum spots on our fingers. We ventured out today with a small, yet eager, crew of four.

There are other changes to note in the ID: Vegetarian Bistro has gone out of business [tear]; China Gate has a sign up that declares, "Under new management" [joy]; Made in Kitchen closed its doors (the city shut them down because of the stupid name) and is being replaced by The Crawfish King in a couple of weeks (possibly as early as the 23rd); And, there's a new hole-in-the-wall that the MSG150 crew has high hopes for but you'll have to wait until next week to fine out what it is.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, MSG150 was featured in Seattle Magazine's cheap eats issues. Also, fellow Seattle luncher Elliot lauded us in his blog as having "somewhat questionable wisdom". Thanks for the compliment Elliot, but where did you see any wisdom? I think even completely questionable wisdom would have been a stretch.

Harbor City, Seattle
Address: 707 S King St, Seattle, WA 98104
Cuisine: Chinese: Dim Sum
Average rating: 4 chopsticks
Lunch date: 12/1/2008 @ 11:55:00
Time taken to be seated: 0 minutes
Time to take order: 0 minutes
Time for food to arrive: 0 minutes
Total lengh of meal: 35 minutes
Chopstix quality: Smoothed Wood
Do they use MSG?: Yes
Where is the owner/chef from?: Canton
Number of tables: 18
Number of occupied tables: 18 (100%)
Number of business lunch tables: 1 (5%)
Number of "local" tables: 17 (94%)
Healthcode Score: 45
Links: Yelp!, Urbanspoon

Family Style Dishes

• Sticky Rice
• Pork and Ginger Dumpling
• Shrimp and Cilantro Dumpling
• Shrimp Dumpling
• Sticky Rice
• Shu mai
• Fried Shrimp Dumpling
• BBQ Pork Pastry
• Green Pepper with Shrimp
• Green Onion Bun

Luncher: Geary

Lunch: Family Style - $9.00
Rating:

Geary's Review

The first thing I noticed upon returning was that the new Harbor City was packed. We were only one of two tables when we ate here last. Today, however, we were sat at the last available table. We were also the only non-Chinese table in the place. My hopes were high.

We started off quickly and within a few minutes had our table full of dim sum. There was nothing fancy, but everything was hot and tasty. A couple of items stood out. The Pork & Ginger Dumplings were excellent. Always a favorite of mine, these were fresh and flavorful. The Green Onion Bun was also a winner.

The four of us ate our fill of good dim sum for under $9 each. This place is second only to Jade Garden in my current ID dim sum rankings. I will be back again.

Luncher: Emmett

Lunch: Family Style - $9.00
Rating:

Emmett's Review

We're back for a re-review, and this time Harbor City has moved on from serving merely typical Cantonese fare and added Dim Sum to their menu. After the raw shrimp experience at Duk Li I was skittish about these cart-less, boutique Dim Sum places. However, I enjoyed the service last time at Harbor City, and they were commended by the health department, so my mouth is open.

There is a hustle and bustle to this place. It's positively jammed packed with locals, chit chatting, drinking tea, etc. I was ready to lay down at Mahjong but then realized my competitive Mahjong skills are limited to the shareware version I played when I was 11 years old. Dominos on the other hand, well. . . let's not go there. We were seated and served quickly, thanksfully the great service is still here.

Food was above-average, mostly fried, but all-in-all fresh and definitely competes well with Jade Garden. I will return.

Luncher: Adam

Lunch: Family Style - $9.00
Rating:

Adam's Review

A new Dim Sum restaurant? It's time to rock and roll. We rolled up on this mission with an elite commando force of Dim Sum-ers... all with at least 4 tours of Dim Sum duty.

This place had a couple of dumplings that I'd never had before: the pork and ginger dumpling, and the shrimp and cilantro dumpling. Both of these had excellent flavor, and I would highly recommend both of them. We also had some of our traditional dim sum dishes: shu mai, sticky rice, and a few others. All of these dishes were also pretty tasty and quite fresh.

This place has quite a few tables, and was totally full. For a new-ish restaurant I thought this was quite impressive. We were the only whitefolk in the whole place.

At some point we'll have to make an ordered list of the best Dim Sum restaurants in Chinatown, and when we do this one should have a pretty solid place near the top.

Luncher: Jared

Lunch: Family Style - $9.00
Rating:

Harbor City Photos

Harbor City


Harbor City window


Fried Shrimp Dumpling


Shrimp Dumplings, Pork & Ginger Dumplings, Shrimp & Cilantro Dumplings


Shu Mai, Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf


BBQ Pork Pastry


The Spread


Green Pepper with Shrimp


Green Onion Bun


Dim Sum Prices