Jade Garden - 01/01/2008

Jade Garden
424 7th Ave S
Seattle, WA 98104

I started the new year at Jade Garden. Not a new place for me. It's the only place I go to any more for dim sum.**

** For those that don't know, dim sum is a type of Chinese cuisine that is served during the morning and early afternoon. It is made up of a variety of light dishes served in small quantities. Think of Chinese style tapas. These appetizer sized dishes usually consists of dumplings, buns, things shaped into round shapes, desserts, fried goodies, etc.... These delectable delights are pushed around on carts and you can make your selections table side. With dim sum you have to have tea. Chinese people don't say, "Let's go out for dim sum." We say, "Let's go have tea!"

Dim sum is definately my favorite style of Chinese food. Ever since I was a child, I would always ask my parents on the weekends if we could go, "yum cha" (have tea). One of the hardest things for me when I was a child was when my family moved from Seattle to the middle of no where (Mount Vernon, WA). There was no dim sum to be found for 60 miles around. It sucked.

But fast forward to today and dim sum is back in my life. I think Jade Garden opened up a few years ago. I don't even recall the first time I went there or even whom I went with. These days this is the Jade Garden routine: They are so busy on weekends that someone has to get there at least half an hour before everyone elses arrival time to put a name on the waiting list. Don't even bother trying to make reservations. You'll just be waiting as long as the rest of us (most likely outside of the restaurant because it gets too crowded inside).

On this particular day there were five of us eating. My roomie and I headed down to Chinatown first and arrived at the restaurant at about 11:30am. After my five minute battle to the waiting list, I had to put down my party info by myself. The two hostesses were so bombarded by customers that it probably would have been another five minutes before I could get someone's attention. Believe it or not, there were 17 walk in parties listed before mine.

Forty-five minutes later and a trip to the bakery and the BBQ place and the arrival of the rest of the party, I'm still waiting. By this point, I was not leaving until I had a steamed shrimp dumpling shoved in my mouth. Long story short: I waited almost one and a half hour for a table at Jade Garden. How long was I there to actually eat: One hour.

Was it worth it? Yes, it was. I think the reason why dim sum is my favorite food is because of the variety. Since everything is served in small servings of three or four, I can have a bite of a dozen different things. I love variety. Whenever I go out to eat with friends, I always insist that everyone orders something different. With dim sum, you don't have to worry about that! I had dumplings, noodle wraps, rice, buns, fried dumplings stuffed with lotus seed paste, chicken feet, spare ribs, shrimp cakes and more! What was missing? French toast. I couldn't find anything similar to French toast. Oh well. I was still definitely satisfied.

The food was so good that it didn't matter that I waited so long for a seat. It didn't even matter that the staff was so crazy busy that the service wasn't quite up to par that day. All that mattered was that I got that shrimp dumpling stuffed in my mouth.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Js