I've been using a few sites to help me find new restaurants and I've noticed a common theme.
Sometimes, in looking for a new restaurant, I'll peruse the comments and ratings of a place to give me a specific feel for it. Any comments on how good or bad the food was, I usually look past. I want to know about service, location and cleanliness. Though, even service is iffy and rarely paid attention to, unless there are major red flags.
These though, are not the common theme (though, they may also be), the common theme of which I speak; I've seen present in the posts of zealots and it drives me absolutely bonkers.
I strongly feel that everyone not only has an opinion, but the right to share it, I'll even on occasion encourage it. However, don't you dare say your opinion is better than someone else's. It's an opinion for cryin' out loud!
"This is the best x in y there is"
"You won't find a better z in town"
It's even more amusing when those reviews are at places I've been to, about food I've had better at other places - my opinion of course. It is definitely a pet peeve of mine, not just in food related arguments, any argument...which is usually just that because someone said in some fashion that their opinion was better than the other's and booom.
Am I innocent of this? No. I may have even at some point in these posts said "best z there is" and for that, I offer my apologies. I have learned a thing or two over the course of restarting this and learning that opinions cannot be better or worse than others... Granted there are exceptions to this, but in general I speak to a healthy, well founded, reasonable opinion.
I've known for a long time tastes are as many and varied as the sands of the beach, they are intrinsic as one's personality, so I speak to my tastes and if in some rights you agree - so much for the better for both. For this I will try to be more cautious in sharing my opinion of a place, and avoid such audacious claims as to have found the best dim sum there is on the planet... coincidentally, "World Famous" claims restaurants make...I just want to tear their signs down. Just because someone was in Japan talking about your food and that person came here for other reasons and found time to try it also, doesn't make it world famous.
Anyway.
I came here to talk about J Wong's I got sidetracked by my own ramblings. I've tried a few Chinese restaurants here and all of them are good, but nothing really to write about. There was one in Bountiful I used to frequent with great frequency, enough so to get (and give) birthday and Christmas gifts from the staff and Owner each year. I loved their food and their service was that of your dear old mum serving you soup in bed when you were a kid, sick in bed...and for one waitress in the whole establishment? That was amazing.
Well, time passes and all good things come to an end - She sold the place and retired, while the service was the same and the food was the same - for a time, it just wasn't "home" anymore. It left a China sized hole in my stomach, and as I said, I've tried several and there really are several by several to try, nothing really filled that hole. Big shoes to fill, you know?
Well, in pursuit of decent Chinese I happened upon this unassuming place coming from some activity and promptly forgot about it. Weeks later I walk by it on the way to try some other restaurant (I don't remember which now) stopped, walked in, called some friends and had a lovely time.
The food was great and the service was decent, they consider themselves "Asian Fusion" so they have more than just Chinese, but since I was looking specifically for it, that's what I ordered.
About three weeks after that I was in the area again and decided I wanted to try something else there. I walk in, this time alone, they seated me and one of the waiters there walks up and asks me if I was in here with my friends a few weeks prior. However innocuous the comment could have been, it was enough to let me know that they were service oriented and I already liked their food, it was an easy favorite place after that, I even took me mum for her birthday, and the rest of my family enjoyed it too.
They find themselves staring to the north, looking at the south side of the Convention Center that has changed it's names almost as much as the Delta Center...or whatever it's called now.
They are on the south side of 200 s a few doors down from the hotel on the corner of West Temple, at 163 w. They also currently offer free valet.
I highly recommend their steamed Sui Loung Bau (pork dumplings), though they take some time to prepare. I also recommend well, everything else on their menu. The serve it family style, and I've yet to have something there I didn't like.
Except maybe the walnuts in the Walnut Shrimp, but the shrimp is amazing and I can't stand walnuts.
-D
