ExtraMSG has noted that they serve the food of the ethnic Koreans in China. The thing is, you don't see that much reflected in the menu. I'm told once you're trusted, or once you're persistent enough, you get some pretty damn incredible stuff that isn't on the menu.

This was our first time, so we ordered off the menu. We ordered BBQ pork, a good-sized serving with dipping sauce for $5, and potstickers. The potstickers were crunchy and thoroughly steaming hot when they came to the table—we inhaled them, in spite of the temperature.

The atmosphere is post-fast food. A couple of fridges are in the dining room, and everything is clean, but not showy. Signs in chinese and korean advertise specials, while crabs scuttle around their tank.

I had the seafood & bean curd in clay pot, which was excellent and very mild: a lovely flavorful sauce, fresh seafood perfectly cooked, lots of veg and tofu which had absorbed the sauce. My copilot ordered the seafood noodles with gravy, a new-to-us concoction of broth, egg noodles, more perfectly cooked, perfectly fresh seafood, egg, and of course, a moo goo gai pan-like sauce—very mild, curious, and quite good.

They offer two free refills on sodas as well as beer, wine and sake.

At the end of the meal, I offered that the kim-chi really looked good, and it was like I had said the magic words. Oh! Just ask for it next time, the waitress said, clearly pleased that I had some lick of sense. Next time I will ask about the signs, oh yes...

Essence of China is one of those restaurants tucked inside a building—except for the sandwich board, and the stencil on the door glass, you'd never know it was there. When I hear combination plate, I think dive. And I love combination plates. But this place is quite pleasant and clean and definitely undivey, though they do have a full bar. Lunch there recently was pleasant and good—not the best Chinese food, but reasonable and fast.

I learned a few things while there. Fried wonton are what are more commonly known as Crab Rangoon. Shanghai wonton, however, are wonton, filled with shrimp and pork with a gingery dipping sauce, very tasty and quite a few of them. And, stay away from the combo plates! I got Plate B, aka egg foo yong, pork fried rice, and fried shrimp. The fried shrimp were great, but the pork fried rice neither tasted nor appeared to contain any pork. The egg foo yong was deep-fried and covered with a yellow gravy.

Everyone else at the table must have gotten the memo, because they all ordered off the Specials menu and did fine. An order of Tofu and Vegetables came to the table as Shrimp and Vegetables, but was otherwise fine: shrimp cooked appropriately with an interesting array of fresh veg in a white sauce. General Tso's Chicken was rated an 8.5 of 10, sweet and spicey as expected. The Sesame Chicken was lovely but not really very sesamey or similar to other dishes of the name. And Kung Pao Chicken was solid, filling and good, everything diced into cubes.

I wouldn't go out of my way for this, but 5 of us ate lunch for about $30, which is nothing to scoff at.

This is not the best dim sum on the west coast, or even in Portland. But there is something so refreshing about dim summing in the giant bus station like room at Fong Chong. Invariably cheerful ladies wheel carts around, and will describe what's on them—to me, it always sounds like shu mai, but it's almost always good too, and you aren't gambling so much to find out. If the young guy comes around with the barbecued pork, be sure to get some—it's great, and a huge portion for $6. Holidays feature specials like lobster pie with ranch sauce (so wrong, and so good) and curry pie. It's best to bring a crowd, both so you get to use the lazy susan technology, and so you can try more things. It goes without saying: there's no use of going to dim sum if you keep kosher or are vegetarian. But for a holiday meal, can you beat $12 a person anywhere else?

This is similar to shabu-shabu. You get a broth, in a pot, on a burner, and you get to toss various protein, starch and veggies in, as you wish. Once you've chosen from their 7 asian broths (vegetarian, Ma-la [herbs and red pepper], Thai-style hot sour, pao-cai [pickled cabbage Korean style], xiang-cai [Chinese cilantro with egg], and meat [yes, I know that's only six, but there is another, really]), you can go and load up on soda, dipping sauce, and goodies for your broth.

The goodies vary, naturally, but include frozen shaved meat, meat balls, stuffed wonton, k-crab, frozen and fresh tofu, a couple types of noodles, and then a bar of vegetables. You choose just what you'd like. Then go plunk yerself down in front of your steaming pot of broth, and start cooking. The best thing: you can go back again and again.

If you have questions, just ask. The Tsais are very helpful, funny, and very real.

Lunch is an amazing $7.50, with dinner $12.50 (I think)—dinner has more seafood, and just more stuff.

I love this place. It's fun people-watching and you get to play with your food. And, you can eat so virtuously, and it's so good.

• Adventure to Hot Pot City (::space:.TUNA:..)
• A hot pot on a cold winter's day
  Dan Cook, The Business Journal of Portland, December 13, 2002

Hunan used to be known as one of the best Chinese restaurants in Portland, back before everyone was so concerned about authenticity, etc. Today, they still make a mean hot and sour soup, and very tasty potstickers. Otherwise, a recent lunch there was an exercise in frustration at worst, and okayness at best.

At lunch, there is the special lunch menu, which is a la carte. Want the General Tso's chicken, which is probably this place's claim to fame? Well, you'll have to order it off the dinner menu. Main courses on the lunch menu range from $6.25-$8.50, and aren't terribly generous. Dinner prices are a bit more, and are quite a bit more generous. Want that Hot & Sour soup? You'll have to order it separately, for another $1.75.

You get an hour for lunch right? Unless you get a half hour, of course. Most places downtown get that, hustling the food out in record time. Not so here. The soup comes out, then the appetizer, then the food. One of our group had to get his to go because it took so long.

So, we ordered General Tso's, beef with snow peas, shrimp in chili sauce, and kung pao chicken. The General Tso's was awful, the meat tough and difficult to chew, though the sauce was nice. The kung pao was referred to as kung poor. The shrimp and beef were okay, no complaints. All in all, they might have been having a bad day.

The atmosphere is airy, with most lunch seating in an atrium filled with ferns, the wait staff efficient and professional, and the luncheon prices pretty reasonable. They have a To Go Only Express lunch from 11-1:30 for cheap, which is an entree, rice and a fortune cookie. They also have lunch specials, Monday thru Friday 11-2:30. Not all that impressive.

A sweet Vietnamese neighborhood place with an extensive and very reasonable menu. Most dishes are around $7-$8, with the most expensive entrees (seafood and specialities) at $9. Vegetarians, meat lovers, and phoaphiles can eat together. Your favorite Asian coffee, juice, exotic smoothie or beer can be had as well. In fact, microbrews are a mere $2.

A recent meal was $24 including tip, for two beers, salad rolls, pho and bun. Nothing knocked us off our feet (both the pho and bun were fairly subtly flavored), but everything was good honest food, great service, decent atmosphere.

Sickie food in my household is amerochinese, the unchallenging chinese food of our youth. But, the things you really want when you're sick: hot & sour soup, eggrolls, maybe some kung pao chicken—well, why is it so difficult to find decent food close to home?

The Orient is not the sort of place I'd recommend you eat at. It's odd. The bar is bright and undistinguished, and the dining room is essentially a long hall with booths on both sides. And rails in front of the booths, just, I guess, so customers don't get out of line. Or something.

Take-out is a mixed bag. Hot & sour soup is actually spicy, and while no one will confuse it with Wong's King Seafood's or Sungari, it's not bad (and the best, sigh, I've had from NE). They show a bit of care with their foodstuffs: a garlicky dipping sauce for potstickers, crab puffs actually taste a little like crab and contain scallions, and deep fried items are separated from their sauces (dude, so they're crispy still!). Still, the entries were no great shakes and may well have come from Panda Compress for all I know.

More photos here

We went seeking pho, soup and bun. Pho Saigon is a pleasant restaurant with booths and tables, a large flat-screen TV, and a lot of lobsters on the wall. The menu is Vietnamese and Chinese, with most items given in English, Vietnamese and Chinese. I was a bit surprised at the prices: a small pho was $5.50, and a large was $8. But no matter.

We ordered salad rolls, fried prawns, a pho with meatballs and rare steak, BBQ pork wonton soup, BBQ pork bun, a thai iced tea, and a Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk.

The drinks, of course, came first: small, strong, and not terribly sweet. I prefer doing my own sweetening, so that was right up my alley.

Next, the salad rolls, which were very decent, stuffed with shrimp and BBQ pork. The dipping sauce was very thin, which made for a drip hazard. I decided to get okay with a drip (or three) on my shirt.

The fried shrimp were, well, not the best example of the craft. The shrimp were firm, sweet, and mediumsized, covered with a thick batter, which was still doughy and undercooked. They came with a classic chinese sweet and sour dipping sauce. The person who ordered them didn't end up eating them in the end.

Then came the entrees. The BBQ pork wonton soup was totally full of wontons and chinese BBQ pork—it was the winner of the table. The wontons were filled, it seems with BBQ Pork, so they were at the bottom, covered by an impressive array of BBQ pork slices. The person who ordered that slurped happily, ignoring the glares from the other side of the tabel.

The pho was a small bowl with both meatballs and sliced eye of round. I had ordered it children's style, without onions, but that had been lost in translation: they may well have given me extra onions. There was a salad plate that was small, but with very fresh ingredients with a full salad plate. The beef broth was okay, though definitely mild and a little underspiced, not the rich broth that I relish.

And the bun, or vermicelli bowls (a rice noodle salad with a fish-sauce dressing), was deemed okay, but terribly mild. It came with adorably cut carrots, and pickled daikon. And while it was deemed okay, the eater picked at it.

Now it could be that we just got lucky, and came in on a bad night. In spite of the parking lot being full, there were only a few tables full in the restaurant. Friends, with better palates than mine, certainly, have liked it. Next time through, I'll stick to the chinese noodle dishes.

Sungari is the best, and nicest presented, chinese food in downtown. Not that that's some exalted thing, as the bar is set so very low in Portland, and especially downtown. For lunch, everything is $10 or less, and you have the choice of ordering with or without soup. The menu is crowded with interesting looking dishes, including some vegetarian & Szechuan options. And while the portions are small, the food is good.

My problem is with the service. I came in just before 1pm and asked for a table for one. I waited for 8 minutes to be seated. There had been 3 or 4 4-tops open, but I was never offered one of those. During the time I waited, no groups came in, no couples, no singles, nobody, except a guy for his call-in order. I was finally seated when a couple left, and their 2-top was free. And maybe my waiter was having a bad day. But he seemed to be annoyed to be waiting on me. And when there are orchids on the table, I expect that someone will feign to be pleased to get my tip. Is that wrong? My waiter won! This one's moving into my not-recommended but I'll-eat-there-if-someone-else-suggests-it,-and-not-make-a-fuss file. Would I go back on my own? No way.

I think all reviews of Wong's King are obligated to begin thusly:

There are other Wong's King, owned by the same family, but the only one you have to take seriously is Wong's King Seafood on SE Division in the new Chinatown. The ones in Sellwood, Sandy and Estacada? You'll get a decent American Chinese meal. But if you are looking for serious high-end Cantonese, get thee to WKS.

Dim sum, a competitive sport.

Word to the wise: have your whole party there when you're seated: if you hold seats for your flakey friends who don't show, you'll be personas non grata in the dining room. I know this sadly from experience. You can get away with this stuff at Fong Chong, but not here.

Within 10 minutes of being seated, every table in the large banquet hall is full. And the carts have already begun. I would have loved to have one of those picture menus so I could accurately name what we had. But everything we had was really good.

Some of the things we had:
-shumai
-shrimp dumplings
-chicken paws (feet)
-congee
-BBQ duck
-sesame balls
-han sui gok (pork in sweet sticky rice then deepfried)
-sticky rice in banana leaves
-spareribs
-ginger chicken
-humbow
-wu gok (mashed taro in sweet sticky rice then deepfried)
-shrimp dumplings with chives
-BBQ pork pastry
-shrimp paste on sugar cane
-deepfried shrimp balls
-shrimp in rice noodle
I admit being too greedy with the eating to take notes.

Whenever we needed something, be it a fork, 10 glasses of water, a glass of 7up, more shrimp in rice noodle, soy sauce and chili oil, we just asked one of the cart ladies, or one of the staffers gliding around the room, and our wish appeared in a matter of moments.

So we ate to a Mr Cresote level, all of it delectable, and for ten people, it was $86. So it was $10 plus change per person.

Eating off the dinner menu is a little more intimidating.

A great start to a meal is ordering a BBQ plate (we've had the duck, pork and duchess chicken and they were all good) and some soup. Even old standbys like wonton and hot and sour soups are really something altogether better.

We ordered several seafood dishes, one a suggestion and another a memory of another meal at WKS, and they were both very good—not what we had expected, but something better entirely.

Most entries ring in within a couple bucks of $10 and portions are generous. For $50 including tip and a beer, two of us ate to bursting, and brought some food home.

Other Press:

• Hidden in Plain Sight: Wong's King Seafood
• Portland Food and Drink
• Royal Dumplings: A new Southeast Portland outpost of Chinese cuisine does dim sum right
  Nancy Rommelmann, Willamette Week, 1/26/2005