World Tong Seafood Restaurant (fka Ocean Port)

[Pan]

The place's name is now World Tong Seafood Restaurant:

6202 18th Av. (62 St.)

Brooklyn, NY 11204

(718) 236-3721

jogoode, mascarpone and I joined eatingwitheddie and five other people in Ed's party for dim sum there today. Ed is a regular there and did most of the ordering for us. jogoode, mascarpone and I all enjoyed the meal and were more or less impressed. We met the dim sum chef, who is only 36 but, we were told, has been working at it for 25 [sic!] years. I felt that the food ranged from average for New York dim sum eating halls to great and far better than any other dim sum I've had in New York. Among the highlights:

Fantastic moist, wonderfully delicious fishballs, possibly the best fishballs I've ever had anywhere. I don't know what all was in them, but a cilantro taste was evident.

Really flavorful fried chive dumplings, best of the fried leek/chive type I've had in New York.

Lovely pork dumplings with spinach, really superior quality

Breaded/fried, stuffed mildly hot green peppers -- just enough bite to come on as a perfect aftertaste.

Shrimp/pea dumplings with finely chopped peas. Whenever I've gotten these elsewhere, the peas were whole and a little mealy. These were far superior.

Fried black sesame paste-filled balls -- perfectly crisp exterior, perfect thickness, delicious!

Also good:

Dough-stuffed wide noodles -- crispy, with a nice sauce (a little like the wide noodles without filling I had at Prince Restaurant, q.v.).

Char siu (made by a different chef than the dim sum chef, we were told).

Har gow

Siu mai

Dessert of coconut sponge cake filled with light-tasting cream and tangy pineapple pieces

Piping hot little puff pastries of apple and little bits of pork, a kind of take on apple turnovers

The chicken feet were nicely cooked but tasted of cod liver oil, a universal casualty of the way non-organic chickens are fed in the US.

The diced clams in their shells with baked mayonnaise sauce were the best of their kind I've tried, but I don't like that dish much.

Ed loves the spring rolls, but I find them too oily.

The spare ribs in black bean sauce were the only item that struck me as below average, compared to the big eating halls in Manhattan's Chinatown like Jing Fong.

I arrived around 11 and the place was full with people crowding the entrance waiting for tables the entire time.

All in all, a very pleasant meal, excellent for New York, and I really enjoyed meeting Ed and his wife and friends. Thanks for your hospitality, Ed.

As a point of interest, I had a short conversation with a man who told me he had come down from Flushing to visit relatives. I asked him what place he recommends for dim sum in Flushing, and he answered East Buffet without hesitation. I mentioned Prince Restaurant; he said they were OK but the real stuff was East Buffet. But he couldn't remember the cross street, so that's the next thing I'm going to find out.

Edited July 3, 2005 by Pan (log)

[jogoode]

For someone like me, with far less experience eating dim sum that Pan--for heaven's sake, the guy is able to compare this dim sum to some he had in Malaysia--I was unequivocally impressed. More than impressed. I giddily looked around after every bite of a new dish to see if anyone else at the table was as affected as I was. The flavors were so bright and the dumplings wrappers so delicate--a reviewer fond of the word gossamer would use his yearly quota on this place.

The diced clams in their shells with baked mayonnaise sauce were the best of their kind I've tried, but I don't like that dish much.

They were definitely scallops and not clams. This was a very odd dish--the corn kernels, the mayo made thick and sweet from cooking. But I enjoyed it. Pan, this is a common dish? I've never seen or heard of it before.

I'd also like to thank Ed for leading our meal. It was great to see him and to meet his friends.

[Pan]

Yeah, you're right; scallops.

I haven't had any identical dishes before, with the corn and everything, but I have had other dim sum dishes with mayonnaise, and this was the best I've had. I ate half of one.

I should add that there were a bunch of other things that looked really interesting but we were too full to eat on this trip.

[peter_nyc]

I made my way down to World Tong Seafood Restaurant on the fourth at around 2:30pm for some dim sum. The place was absolutely packed.

After spilling hot tea all over my partner's lap, I was ready to eat.

Everything was delicious except for an order of what appeared to be a large helping of pork fat and skin with traces of pork meat-- none of the fat had rendered out in the slightest. And while I have no clue as to whether this is an authentic preparation, the sheer amount of pork fat was simply offputting to me.

One interesting thing though: While I just returned from a trip to Vietnam and therefore have all things Vietnamese on the mind, I swore I heard the waiter who did not speak English call one of the dishes "Bun Xeo". It was a glutinousy-rice pancake-y thing but it had no filling and was doused in a sesame-peanut sauce, but was certainly reminiscent of a bun xeo. Was I hearing things?

[Pan]

[...]Everything was delicious except for an order of what appeared to be a large helping of pork fat and skin with traces of pork meat-- none of the fat had rendered out in the slightest.  And while I have no clue as to whether this is an authentic preparation, the sheer amount of pork fat was simply offputting to me.[...]

←

You're talking about the char siu? Yes, in my experience, lots of fat in char siu is authentic, though not invariable. I of course remain to be corrected by someone who's more knowledgeable.

Do you recall what else you had?

[lambretta76]

Going to try and hit this place this weekend - can anyone who's been lately point out the treasures that shouldn't be missed? I'm quite an adventurous eater, and will even be giving chicken feet a go. (How do you "eat" these, anyways?)

Oh, and could one of the mods change the title of this post to be a discussion about World Tong? This thread didn't come up in a site search for "world tong"...

I just realied that Pan's post was from July of this year, not last... anyways, - can anyone throw out any other opinions. (And it looks like I may steer clear of the chicken feet...)

Edited July 25, 2005 by lambretta76 (log)

[Pan]

Going to try and hit this place this weekend - can anyone who's been lately point out the treasures that shouldn't be missed? I'm quite an adventurous eater, and will even be giving chicken feet a go. (How do you "eat" these, anyways?)

Oh, and could one of the mods change the title of this post to be a discussion about World Tong? This thread didn't come up in a site search for "world tong"...

←

The name has been changed.

The chicken feet at World Tong are fine, just not better than the big dim sum eating halls I sometimes go to in Manhattan. You eat them by picking them up with chopsticks, eating the skin, cartilege and so forth, and leaving the bones on your plate.

[Transparent]

Wow, I had not known that Ocean Port changed its name. I had been going every other week, but I have yet to go this month. I remember when Ocean Port was less crowded, and more food came out fresh because the kitchens did not expect too many people. The portions have shrunk, and dim sum doesn't taste as good when you can't relax and talk.

For the last few weeks, my family has been trying out dim sum places in Flushing. I find East Buffet good, but only because of their expanded selection from Ocean Palace/World Tong. Has anyone been to Gala Palace? There are a lot of unique Hong Kong styled foodstuffs there as well, not to mention the HUGE pots of boiling water they carry around (according to my father, these pots were used a while ago in HK and he had not seen one for years). The dim sum is just awesome there. Much better than East Buffet (which has terrible har gow, by the way).

[Pan]

Transparent, I'm not familiar with Gala Palace. Please start a thread about it, and please include the location.

[lambretta76]

In today's Village Voice, Robert Sietsema reviews World Tong. The verdict - dim sum-ptuous.

World Tong Dim Sum review - Village Voice

Another day the highlight of our meal was a wiggly plate of mango pudding molded into a goldfish shape, with black sesame seeds for eyes, flanked by slices of ripe mango.

[Pan]

I was in Bensonhurst yesterday afternoon for a rehearsal, and decided to walk to World Tong afterwards and get takeout to bring up to my parents for dinner. We don't hear so much about this restaurant since Joe Ng left to go to Chinatown Brasserie, but I'm here to tell you, my takeout dinner from there was one of the best Cantonese dinners I've had in New York. I was pleasantly surprised that it was still warm after the hour-long trip to the Upper West Side.

I ordered Fish Congee for my father (I didn't have any, but he liked it and described it as being made with a very lean whitefish, just perfect for settling his stomach).

The other items I ordered were:

Fillet Steak w. Chinese Broccoli, made with very tasty beef and delicious!

Soy Sauce Chicken (whole), which was a very good one

Jumbo Shrimp w. Garlic Sauce, which was outstanding and probably the best dish I got. It was a complex mix of tastes and included some great preserved vegetables.

Seafood Eggplant w. Spicy Sauce, another really superior dish. The eggplant, in long strips, had a great texture - tender without getting to the point of disintegration - the sauce was lovely, and the seafood was good. It was indeed fairly spicy, with bits of dried red pepper on top.

The total cost was $62.15

I can't wait to go back and have dinner at the restaurant.

Edited December 4, 2007 by Pan (log)