Good Chinese?

[Meishi]

As you may tell from my name, I am very into Chinese food, and would be thrilled to find a reliable, good, reasonably priced Chinese restaurant. Full Kee in DC's Chinatown is good for standard Cantonese dishes (and their "delicacies"), and there are a few places scattered around NoVA that are good if they know you and understand that you are not afraid of authenticity (and of course A&J is great, IMHO). But this seems like slim pickings for a major world capital. Anyone else have some spots they'd care to share with me?

Edited February 23, 2003 by Meishi (log)

[coastcat]

I like Seven Seas in Rockville for fresh seafood preparations (on the red menu - the black menu they usually hand to non-Asians is just the routine stuff) and their crispy duck. Mama Wok And Teriyaki (Rockville again) also offers fresh seafood and good homestyle dishes (and sushi).

Yum, A&J... love those spiced pig ears! One day I'll trick my bacon-loving (but squeamish) husband into trying these.

The best Chinese food in Rockville (at least for those who can't read Chinese characters) may be Joe's Noodle House and their Szechuan house specialties.

Amazon has restaurant menus online (go to their homepage and scroll down to "Amazon.com Services" for the link); reading through the NY and SF restaurant menus makes me weep with envy.

[Peter Rodgers]

If you don't mind that the Bush family frequents the place and that most of the customers are non-Asian, Peking Gourmet in the Va. suburbs is probably the most consistent in the area. Terrific Peking Duck and a good job with subtle, Cantonese flavoring. Mark's Duck House, also in Va. is a good Hong Kong style restaurant, complete with live seafood and a bustling, mostly Asian crowd. Robert Parker, the wine critic, is a great fan. Hollywood East in Wheaton, another Hong Kong style restaurant is also good, although it can be inconsistent.

Dim sum in the area is generally poor, with the exception of Oriental East in Silver Spring, which is ok (but the lines on the weekend are endless).

I've tried every Chinese Restaurant in DC and have been uniformly disappointed.

[djhendel]

A warning about Mark's Duck House. Fabulous food, but has been closed twice in two years for filth: vermin infestation, etc. There's a small open kitchen up front with the roasted pig, chicken and duck, and the resident chef smokes while he chops.

Anyone see the New Yorker article about NYC health inspectors last month? One said that (paraphrasing) you'd have to be crazy to eat in Chinatown. Mark's is of that genre.

But great food.

Diane

[vengroff]

I had lunch at Full Kee. Their HK style noodle soups and other specialties were not on the menu that was handed to me, but there was a menu in the center of the table that listed them. Looking around the room it's clear most people ignore the special menu. This place does a booming lunch special business in General Tso's chicken, sweet and sour dishes, fried rice, and egg rolls.

I had the shrimp dumpling and noodle soup. The noodles were good, but the broth didn't have much depth and the dumplings we only OK. Next time I'll probably go for roast pork and wonton noodle soup, which looked quite good.

[hjshorter]

Eat First in Chinatown

Dynasty, Good Fortune, and Paul Kee (if it's still open) in Wheaton

A&J, Seven Seas in Rockville

New Fortune in Gaithersburg

Good fortune has good dim sum on the weekends. New Fortune's dim sum is pretty good too.

[hjshorter]

I had lunch at Full Kee.  Their HK style noodle soups and other specialties were not on the menu that was handed to me, but there was a menu in the center of the table that listed them.  Looking around the room it's clear most people ignore the special menu.  This place does a booming lunch special business in General Tso's chicken, sweet and sour dishes, fried rice, and egg rolls.

I had the shrimp dumpling and noodle soup.  The noodles were good, but the broth didn't have much depth and the dumplings we only OK.  Next time I'll probably go for roast pork and wonton noodle soup, which looked quite good.

Vengroff, try Eat First the next time. I have never seen anyone eating General Tso's chicken there.

I haven't tried them lately but their soups used to be excellent.

[hjshorter]

Bumping this topic up...

We ate at a very good Taiwanese restaurant this afternoon called Bob's Noodle. It's in downtown Rockville, hidden on the side of a big Rockville Pike office building. There's only one menu, with many soups, noodle dishes and Taiwanese specialties, nothing westernized.

We're not really familiar with Taiwanese cuisine, so most of the menu was stuff we had never seen before. We ordered oyster congee, Shanghai Chow Mein (broad rice noodles with cabbage and pork), Sweet Rice Cake, Taiwanese-style Meat Pie (pork in a very thick gelatinous wrapper), and Spinach with Garlic. All were very good. The owner came over and chatted with us for a few minutes and explained some of the dishes we had ordered, which was very helpful.

Bob's Noodle

305 N. Washington Street

Rockville, MD

301-315-6668

Edit: forgot to mention that this place is cash only right now.

Edited May 27, 2003 by hjshorter (log)

[maryland crab]

You might also try Hollywood East in Wheaton. It has a huge menu that I believe to be authentic - certainly packed with Eastern customers.

[hjshorter]

You might also try Hollywood East in Wheaton.  It has a huge menu that I believe to be authentic - certainly packed with Eastern customers.

We used to eat there occasionally when we lived in Wheaton. Good Fortune was our favorite - mostly HK style dishes.

[herbacidal]

meishi, how'd ya pick that name?

no problem?