Jing Fong

20 Elizabeth Street, Chinatown, NY

6.8

map & more

Neighborhood
Chinatown

Cuisine
Chinese

Nearby
Bowery Ballroom

212-964-5256

Official Website

By Andrew Steinthal
January 12, 2012

There are always a ton of people taking in Chinatown, and they obviously all need to eat. Apparently Jing Fong is where community feeding sessions are held in mass. Wow. This place is massive. So massive that an escalator dumps people directly from the sidewalk into the dining room. That’s got to be some kind of health code violation. This is an establishment meant for big groups. From a birthday party of 20 to a wedding of 500, this Chinese banquet hall has got you covered, Grand Prospect Hall style.

Jing Fong is about as aesthetically pleasing as the largest conference room the Javits center has to offer, yet slightly more Ed Hardy thanks to some big ass dragons protruding from the walls. The furniture looks like it was picked up off the party rental scrap heap – round tables and chairs are barely in good enough condition to get away with. It’s all part of Jing Fong’s charm.

Dim Sum isn’t something we dabble in very much. At Jing Fong, old ladies roll carts around, trying to sell you on their wares. I didn’t have a clue what half the stuff I put into my mouth was, which was probably for the best. Some of it was gross. Some of it was awesome. All of it was dirt cheap. 15 of us ate pretty much anything that came our way, drank a bunch of bad wine and the final bill came out to a little less than $20 a head, including tip.

I’m not sure I ever need to come back here, but I’m glad I’ve gotten the full Jing Fong experience at least once in my life and suggest you do the same. Go for Chinese New Year when they bring in the live drummers and dragons.

Food Rundown:

Dim Sum
Here’s a quick breakdown of what we ate at Jing Fong, which probably is only about 5% of the options they offer since there are literally 250 items on the menu and plenty of other things rolling around on carts. Best thing at Jing Fong are the Cantonese style clams. Spicy and delicious. Make sure you order these from your server though, they don’t bring these around on carts. Another item you need to order is a big bowl of crispy noodles. It’s a monster serving and an excellent dish to share at the table. The sticky pork buns were the overall fan favorite, you definitely need a couple orders of those. These egg wraps were awesome. We had high hopes for the roasted duck, but it fell flat. Too many bones, not enough flavor and overall just not that good. The bacon wrapped shrimp were a little too meaty for our liking and these sloppy shrimp rolls were hard to eat and pretty disgusting. We had tons of other stuff, but those were both the high and lowlights. Happy eating.