2008 Woodie Awards
Take it down to Chinatown
Alex Sundstrom
Issue date: 2/12/04 Section: Etc.
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For those who like sidling up to the steam table for moist, oily lumps of Chinese, Indian or similar deliciousness, the instant gratification of the buffet is not without peril. Loading every possible item onto your first plate leaves you sadly nibbling on massive amounts of some cold and soggy thing you never should have taken, making the trip for a second plate that much further away. Even worse, you actually have to get up and waddle over TO the buffet table mid-gorge. You don't deserve this, and you don't have to: go to Chinatown for dim sum instead.
There are two basic types of dim sum; in the more genteel version, you fill out a card ordering various items and they are brought to you. In the other version, weary Chinese women push around carts laden with covered plates of fresh morsels and try to talk you into eating them. There's no waiting for food to be prepared (although carts can take a while to make a full circuit of the dining area), no cold or lukewarm food, and you don't have to leave your seat. Emperor's Garden is the best by far of Boston's cart-based dim sum, both in setting and cuisine.
Emperor's Garden (or Empire Garden, depending on which sign you go by) is housed in a converted theater; the vaulted ceilings, chandeliers and ornate architecture would have made it a good venue for opera or concerts or similarly inferior uses of space, and the owners haven't changed much except for repainting the walls with images of the sky and Chinese flora and installing a golden dragon or two. The grandiose setting is a bit intimidating, even more so when it is filled with a few hundred people and a dozen-odd carts weaving around. Even getting a seat is pretty impersonal: you take a number and mill among the crowds waiting for the announcer to blare it out over the loudspeakers in Cantonese and in English. The sheer volume of the operation, of course, makes it pretty cheap - no matter which 5 or 6 items I share with someone else, it never costs more than $9 or $10 per person.
There are two basic types of dim sum; in the more genteel version, you fill out a card ordering various items and they are brought to you. In the other version, weary Chinese women push around carts laden with covered plates of fresh morsels and try to talk you into eating them. There's no waiting for food to be prepared (although carts can take a while to make a full circuit of the dining area), no cold or lukewarm food, and you don't have to leave your seat. Emperor's Garden is the best by far of Boston's cart-based dim sum, both in setting and cuisine.
Emperor's Garden (or Empire Garden, depending on which sign you go by) is housed in a converted theater; the vaulted ceilings, chandeliers and ornate architecture would have made it a good venue for opera or concerts or similarly inferior uses of space, and the owners haven't changed much except for repainting the walls with images of the sky and Chinese flora and installing a golden dragon or two. The grandiose setting is a bit intimidating, even more so when it is filled with a few hundred people and a dozen-odd carts weaving around. Even getting a seat is pretty impersonal: you take a number and mill among the crowds waiting for the announcer to blare it out over the loudspeakers in Cantonese and in English. The sheer volume of the operation, of course, makes it pretty cheap - no matter which 5 or 6 items I share with someone else, it never costs more than $9 or $10 per person.