Chung Ying Garden
D said he wanted to eat Dim sum, so we went to Chung Ying Garden on 13 October 2007 for lunch.
We have been there already once and we found it too dark for lunch venue, but it happened to be a gloomy day and we said this shortcoming might not matter that much.
I have already wrote about the exterior and interior of Chung Ying Garden at the previous visit. I just want to add that the wall paper next to our table were full of mold like spots, and that made us wander it is the reason why they keep the lighting so dark. The spoon given to me was generously tipped as you see in the photo.
At the last visit, they had two menus, one in English and the other in Chinese, but this time we were given the bilingual menu, which was a good thing.
While D wanted to eat dim sum, I fancied noodles. This is King Prawn Chow Mein. It is £8 on menu, but I am pretty sure that we were charged £8.50.
I had an idea that chow mein is noodles stir-fried with veggie and meat etc., but what I got was quite different. The noodles were fried with oil to crisp, and stir fried prawns, French beans, and Chinese mushrooms were poured on top together with thick soup. It was quite nice, if a bit too oily.
I like to eat this type of noodles with vinegar. so I requested it to a waiter. He brought to me only a small quantity of black vinegar in a small plate, presumably one to be used as dipping sauce. I need to bring my vinegar bottle with me next time.
The next to come was King Prawn Spring Rolls (£2.90).
As you can read in the Chinese menu (if you happen to know Chinese characters), they have quite strong garlic taste. D liked them very much saying they were like Greek food, but to me the garlic overpowered the prawns and not entirely successful.
D wanted to try something new and ordered this: Steamed beef balls with water cress (£2.50). The green below are peas.
The mince must have contained something different from the meat, maybe fish mince, as it had an interesting texture, quite different from normal meat balls. And I tasted more coriander than water cress. They were nice, but I wanted white rice to go with.
Another unusual dish: Steamed King Prawn Parcels in Spicy Soy Sauce (£2.90).
Four king prawn wantons are served with chilly soy sauce. Dim sums are usually not chili-hot, except for more-sweet-than-hot Chinese chili sauce. They were nice, but I wanted white rice to go with again. I used the remaining chili soy sauce to eat the noodles which were under-seasoned.
We ordered also mango pudding. It is not on the menu, but you can see it in the display fridge. Frankly I was disappointed in it as it did not taste mango as much as I liked. I had better ones many times elsewhere. I did not how much did it cost, but calculating from the final bill, it should be £4: laughably overpriced..
The bill came to £20.80, so I left £22. Usually I leave 10% tip, but as we were overcharged for the noodles, I left less. Although we ordered rather expensive noodle dish, I found it worse value comparing to other dim sum restaurants.
The food overall was ok, but taking into consideration the décor and the attitude of service staff, I still prefer Golden Pond.
For more recent visit, click here.
Address: 17 Thorpe Street, Birmingham
Phone: 0121 666 6622
Website: http://www.chungying.co.uk/
