Ton Kiang

Price: $-$$$
Rating: 8 (Rating & price key)
Last visit: 10/16/06

On a dinner visit here, Sarah and I started with delicious char siu bau (pork-filled steamed dumplings) and a pretty good appetizer of mu shu pork ($9). Our first entree, american broccoli beef ($9) was alright, but not too exciting. That changed with the arrival of our other dish, a positively sumptuous salt spicy scallops with red chilis ($14), breaded and perfectly deep-fried. We likened them to popcorn scallops and even felt a little guilty eating such a thing. Service was efficient and friendly enough, and we never felt rushed. The Hakka-style entrees offer a respite from the usual Chinese fare - we hungrily eyed many tasty-looking dishes as others were served. We returned one Sunday afternoon to sample their dim sum and again had great food. After a 30-minute wait (they're really busy on weekends) we enjoyed a variety of finger foods, all good-to-great. We wound up spending $60 for 3, so it's by no means cheap dim sum. The shrimp stuffed crab claw, stuffed mushrooms, and asparagus were my favorites. On subsequent visits, the lovely salt/chili scallops were wonderful as always, along with a very flavorful, if a touch salty, basil beef. The chicken fried rice was pretty bland and the lemon chicken was waaaaaaaaay too sweet, but otherwise well-executed. I tried a Hakka Clay Pot of tofu, diced chicken and salty fish despite the warning of our server that English-speaking folks don't usually like it. She was right - the salty fish was extremely, hugely, gargantuanly salty and fishy, but I quite liked the rest of the dish, and look forward to trying some of their other clay pot dishes. The shrimp stuffed eggplant (tasty as an entree when we had it here) and shanghai meat dumpling dim sum weren't bad, but weren't as thrilling as others we've had here.