Chinese: New J&B
In a NoshGirl first, I’m reviewing a restaurant that I don’t *really* know the name of. See, I go for dim sum a lot, and I’m pretty familiar with most of the popular restaurants in Chinatown. A few months ago, a friend’s father suggested “King’s Seafood” to me. I went. It was good. I went again, and King’s Seafood had disappeared. Sadsies. A few weeks later, J&B Seafood popped up in its place. So I went, it the decor was the same, and the food was still good.
A few weeks after THAT, the restaurant was called New J&B. Still good, same decor. What gives? Anyway – as I write this, the restaurant is called New J&B. By the time you stop by, it will undoubtedly have a different moniker. But let’s talk about the food, shall we?
For the initiated, dim sum is an indecisive person’s dream come true. You can order a bunch of different small plates, each with 3 or 4 pieces to sample. If you don’t like something you ordered, no worries – it wasn’t too expensive and there’s probably someone in your party who will gobble it up. With dim sum, you can afford to be adventurous.
There are a few “staple” foods that I order when trying a dim sum place, to establish a means of comparison, if you will. The first is the har gow, or shrimp dumpling, below:
Offering delicately seasoned shrimp wrapped in a translucent skin, har gow can be done very well, or very poorly. I’ve had stale shrimp, hardened skin, lukewarm har gow – it sucks. On the other hand, freshly steamed shrimp accented with hints of bamboo, steamed in a perfectly soft, thin skin, is heavenly. I’m happy to say that J&B’s har gow was fresh, well made, and served steaming hot. Good job, J&B.
The other dim sum dish that I regularly sample is the steamed pork bun:
Although I am a bigger fan of the baked variety (with a sweet-glazed bread), more dim sum joints offer the steamed version, allowing me to compare apples to apples, or um, pork buns to pork buns. While J&B did well on the soft, pillowy steamed bread, the roast pork filling inside was a little too sweet and cloying. I’ll skip these next time.
I rounded out my dim sum sampler with a personal fave, the gow choy gow – or garlic chive dumpling:
The garlic chive is different from the American chive in that it has, well, more of a garlicky flavor. A bunch of places sell the gow choy gow, but J&B was frying them to order:
This is key. You’ll occasionally see these babies piled up on a pushcart, lukewarm. Stay away. While I’ve had a tepid gow choy gow before, it’s not ideal. Stick to the fresh-fried ones and you’ll be golden. J&B’s were very well done, with a dip in chili sauce (first picture) to round out the savory flavor. Yum!
The bill for eating buddy and I came out to less than $10, woohoo! And to prove I’m not making this up about the name shenanigans:
I’d like to try a few more dishes at J&B to determine its place on my dim sum hit list. But at these prices and the relatively short wait, I’d recommend J&B (or whatever it’s called!)
Good dim sum. Now if they could only decide on a name…
39 East Broadway (btw Market/Catherine)
Have you had dim sum before? What are your favorite dishes?
Dude, I am so jealous, you get to try all this amazing food and consider it kinda like "work". That's tough… not!
1I love dim sum. It might be my favorite meal. I LOVE the steamed pork spare ribs, Law Bok Gow and the taro dumpling
2Dim sum in NY seems so cheap. Sadness for our extravagant prices over here. Also, no one fries things to order in the Bay Area. Just a bunch of lukewarm dim sum served on carts. still good enough.
3King's Seafood! Mr. T certainly loves that place but I'm sure the name change thing will just confuse us all!
4Oh wow it all looks amazing. I've been craving dim sum lately. Guess it's time for a little trip on downtown. And so funny what you say about not knowing the name. I've been there
5Okay, I should have known better than to read one of your posts on an empty stomach. I crave pork buns now. :/
6Love dim sum! Sadly not much great dum sum here
7Charlene, I would LOVE to consider this work! Unfortunately, no one pays me, ha!
M and C, I love Law Bok Gow as well! My mom used to make it
8mmm, steamed pork bun is one of my favorite dim sum choices. now i hope to find a place that has gow choy gow.
9I've never had dim sum before (hanging head in shame). I think you will have to take me.
10ooh yummy. i'm a fan of siu mai. i know, so typical.
11Love me some dim sum. I'm seriously hungry right now too! I really dig dim sum with shrimp in it… like all of them!
12That chive dumpling looks so good. Seems like the outside dough is thin and chewy, just the way I like it. I need to find some good dumplings in Chinatown here.
13I meant to respond to your tweet about this but couldn't remember the name until now.
Have you tried the Golden Unicorn? Literally right there by King's…or J&B…or [insert new name here] at 18 E Broadway. I checked it out on my last trip to the city and it was pretty tasty!
14Big Mouth Bride, yes – Golden Unicorn is one of our favorite places! I will be writing about it real soon
15Thanks for the good writeup. It in fact was a amusement account it. Glance complex to far added agreeable from you! By the way, how can we communicate?
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