dining

Dim sum at Lung Fung

by Eric Jackson

For a number of years I lived on El Paical, just a few blocks away from the Palacio Lung Fung, and in those years I was making more than I have been lately. And so it was that I made a frequent habit of going out for Chinese breakfast --- dim sum --- at this popular Chinese restaurant. But I hadn't done that for a few years, and my last several visits were on weekdays.

On this Sunday morning, there was a line to get into the dining room --- not nearly so long as what you will encounter at this establishment on a Father's day, but just enough to let you know that despite some tough competition that has come along in recent years, Lung Fung still thrives.

A traditional Chinese breakfast includes soup, and may involve all manner of dumplings, meatballs and other delicacies for the most part designed to be picked up with chopsticks. You don't have to do it that way at Lung Fung, but that's the way Sunday dim sum is set up.

I'm not sure whether it's because the crowds snap things up so quickly or because on such jam-packed days there is less room for the servers and their carts to get around, but the effect is that on a Sunday there are a bit fewer items to choose among than if you go on a weekday. For both atmosphere and selection I prefer weekdays.

But there was more than I was going to eat anyway.

The meatballs and shrimp balls and hsiu mai and various shrimp-filled dumplings are all things that I love, but they're also the sorts of high-purine foods that can make me hobble around with gout. The bits of pork with fermented soy beans, rice balls, dumplings filled with spinach, fish balls, hampao, roast pork with Chinese mushroom slices and chicken dumplings create no such problems. Nor did the little bowl of egg drop soup. And I don't know whether to believe the saying that green tea is good for you, but pot of it does go very well with such a meal as I reconfirmed.

Yes, they brought the dessert cart around, but this day I avoided it. When I was done eating a cart went around with the chicken feet braised in five spices powder, and had it been available earlier I might have taken a portion of that. The cart at which they fry little Chinese omelets and other Middle Kingdom breakfast goodies will come around on a weekday, but it didn't this time. It wasn't a huge deprivation for me, but when it's available I do like some of the things they bring around on this cart.

The bottom line? Sunday dim sum at the Palacio Lung Fung is a wildly popular social event because it's a good breakfast, and this major feast for our party of four came to just $25 and change. What they offer is worth it.

But it's even better on a weekday.