If at Chinese restaurants you only eat sweet and sour chicken, wonton soup, and lo-mein, you will be made happy at Chinatown Caf??, although you will miss the better part of the menu. On the 300 block of Park Avenue, where you wouldn't walk without specific purpose, there's this Zagat-rated Chinese place; it's got a spacious dining room, as you can see, and clearly non-decorative fish tanks in the front. All are good signs, except the Zagat rating sticker in the window. Forgiving the Zagat rating (which may have been good, I just dislike Zagat), in we went.
There was country music playing, one other group in the restaurant, and Will and Grace on mute on the small TV hung near the ceiling. There was a fair amount of cognitive dissonance going on, as you can imagine. I was growing skeptical of the restaurant, and my friend who had suggested it.
Then they brought us three different menus, and all was redeemed. There was the straight menu, containing the stuff bad eaters and meat-and-potatoes people order.
Then there was the dim-sum menu, with an impressive but sub-encyclopedic listing of the little dishes. The translations were even good -- nothing like 'dried three kinds,' which has appeared on a Chinese menu.
The one problem with good translations is that it's hard to get stuff for which you actually know the Chinese word. Shu-mai, for instance, I couldn't order simply because I didn't know what they decided to call it in English. I think it might have been 'steamed pork dumpling,' but when faced with a good menu I find it hard to focus.
The greatest kindness of this place is that you can order dim-sum dishes off the menu not during dim-sum meals. Dim-sum is where they come around with little carts, and you don't have to bother with translation because you can see the food in front of you, decide you have no idea what it is, and eat it anyway.
Off the dim-sum menu we ordered the steamed roast pork bun, which is a decent barometer of dim-sum repertoire. The texture is just so surprising, the flavor so sweet, and the pork so rich, it's a completely un-American food. It's so much fun to eat.
Usually our bread products have some browning on the crust. The proteins and the sugars have started to undergo the maillard reactions, which happen above 300 degrees, and the surface changes color. Steaming keeps it below 212, and so the surface is absolutely white, and the texture of the bun is sticky and moist, the flavor sweet. This version is good, and indicates strength elsewhere on the dim-sum menu.
The third menu is the 'Hong-Kong menu.' These guys aren't kidding around. There's a $40 prix fixe menu, along with several ascending meals designed for groups ranging into the 20s and containing bewitching house specialties.
They have many frog dishes, and they have pickled mustard greens -- they go all out. I ordered the Fah-ji (Chinese squid) and conch saut???ed with chiles. My companion had the ordinary squid saut??ed with green peppers in black bean sauce.
This place can sure cook a cephalopod. They rock at bivalves, too. I'm nearly certain that my conch had for its only sauce oil and garlic -- a perfect combination.
The Chinese squid was great, the texture was perfect, the subtle flavor of squid was perfectly accented by the simple and well-executed sauce.
The conch was a well-prepared bivalve, the only flaw being that as the meal progressed, the conch cooled, causing the texture to become tough.
It tastes really good, but you have to eat it fast. That was the only problem, and that is not so much a big problem. Stuffing garlicky shellfish into my mouth at an alarming rate is one of my better talents.
The squid with black bean sauce and green peppers had a chewy, but tender texture. The black bean sauce was present, but not overpowering. The green peppers were firm and flavored by the dish, and the fish was of very good quality.
Everything you ate was fun to eat. It was like the stand-up comedy of Chinese restaurants.
With our check (off of which we got 10 percent -- Chinatown Caf?? has a student discount), they brought us 'dessert.'
It was a liquid in a bowl, white, with a spoon. Eventually, we decided it was sweetened coconut milk with maybe a third ingredient with a buttery flavor, and nasty shredded coconut on the bottom, but when it first came we weren't sure what it was, and we certainly hadn't ordered it.
"What is this?" we asked, and in reply we got the very helpful, "dessert." We pressed on, "but what is it?" She replied, "dessert, it's sweet." Well then. Perhaps there were some translation problems.
Chinatown Cafe
323 Park Ave.
Phone: (410) 727-5599
Location: Mt. Vernon
Open weekdays, 11 a.m.- 3:30 p.m.
Weekends, 11a.m.-1 a.m.
