Wings, Chinatown and Sel de la terra thank you and a dim sum question

[joaniebaby]

I searched the board before a trip to Boston last weekend. Tried Wings in Chinatown for lunch and loved it, especially the minced pork with sesame cakes as recommended. Is there much difference with the shredded pork? Any other Favorite restaurants/dishes I should be trying?

For dinner we went to sel de la terra. Excellent meal. Hubby had venison; the sugar pumpkin risotto with it was out of this world. I had steak frittes and those rosemary fries are great. Favorite dish was the diver scallop appetizer. Mussel app was good, but too much Pernod for my taste.

Sunday morning we went to China Pearl for dim sum. Some of it was very good, some just okay. Is there another place you would recommend for dim sum for our next trip?

Thanks for the help!
JB

[tomaneng]

Go to hei la moon for dim sum next trip.

[Dr.Jimbob]

For Wing's: full details at http://www.chowhound.com/topics/39882... My faves include the crab meat soup dumplings (xie-fen xiao-long-bao), the lion's head meatballs (hong-shao shi-zi tou), the braised eel in almost enough garlic (shan-yu hu) and the rice cakes (chao nian-gao).

For dim sum: Hei La Moon or Emperor's Garden. I differ from the majority in finding the latter to be good enough to not want to surmount the ridiculous lines at HLM.

[9lives]

re Wing's, based on one of your old posts, we were looking for the braised eel..only saw a fried eel on the menu. Is that an off menu item..or did we just not see it? We'll try "shan -yu hu" next trip.

[Dr.Jimbob]

Odd it was on menu when I was there back in May. It might have been listed as fried eel in English. Unfortunately it appears that I don't have a menu from them in my house, and the on line menu that I found at http://boston.menupages.com/restauran... lists that same "fried eel" that you mention and nothing else. That might be it, but it'll have to wait until the next time I'm eating there for me to be able to confirm one way or the other.

[kobuta]

Okay, a bizarre, unsubstantiated rumor from my parents who seems to hear a lot of the Chinatown gossip/news. The Empire Garden's dim sum chefs jumped ship to the new China Pearl in Quincy, Hei La Moon's then moved to fill the spots at Empire Garden, and I have no idea who's staffing Hei La Moon. I've only found Empire Garden's food to be ok, but if they have truly inherited Hei La Moon's former staff, I would be willing to give them another try.

[jgg13]

When would this have happened?

The last few times I've been to HLM, most of them have been somewhat disappointing (haven't been for about a month or two, but went several times in the aug-oct range)

[kobuta]

Didn't mention dates, but my guess would be close to when China Pearl in Quincy opened. Was that late summer? (My memory's rusty).

[hargau]

When is the last time you went to HLM? I have not had to wait very long at all, if at all, since they opened the lower level. Basically doubles the capacity of the place.

The few times i have been to empire, we found things to be soggy/mushy and have an odd soapy flavor. I have not been in about 2 years though, im willing to try it again but cant get anyone else in the crew to go back

[Dr.Jimbob]

I was last at HLM about a year ago, before the basement opened. Dim sum in a basement is not something that I actively look forward to, though.

I've been at Empire Garden countless times, and I've seen your comments about soggy, mushy, soapy fare. I can only say I've never noticed any of this on any of the occasions that I've been there.

[hargau]

Like i said i only went 3-4 times so maybe we caught them off or something.

The basement is very nicely decorated/finished. It used to be only used for large functions, weddings etc....

While the upstairs at HLM has a few windows... Both China Pearl and empire garden have none so it really doesnt make any difference that you go down a set of stairs rather then up does it?