Friday, September 25, 2009

Kong




The idea behind Kong is Chinese street food. I don't know if it really lives up to that ..the offerings were a little bit "safe" compared to what I might expect on the street in Hong Kong, or even Philly's Chinatown. But this is coming from someone who actually wants to eat blackened fermented chicken gizzards and durian shakes, so take it with a grain of salt..

Anyhow any issues I had with the concept were gone as soon as I ate the food. Went with a large group and I think we went through half the menu. Everything looked great..The crab & rice omelette with chinese sausage and splattered with sriracha was gone in 2 minutes. Simple and awesome... the kind of thing I would make at home with leftover rice. Sauteed longbeans were also nice & simple. Softshell crab was kind of lost in a big salad, I dont think I got any crab but I just might have been the last person to get to the bowl. Lamb / pine nut / eggplant dumplings were also delicious.






We also tried the short rib buns, really good, there was a kind of "slider" thing going on with the presentation, and we passed around various noodle and rice bowls, I think I had about 5 different styles of pork belly and chinese bacon- crispy, star anise braised, etc etc.. - that were all terrific. Oh and the pork ribs were great. And the tofu / edamame dumplings, surprisingly good for vegetarian stuff, nice texture, etc. Velvet corn soup - really wanted to try it but it was kind of warm out still... next time.

So even though I wasn't exactly transported to a busy market in China - you can't seem to go wrong with anything on the menu, I believe the noodles are all made on site, the prices are reasonable and the beer is cold, good service... good deal.

KONG
702-704 North 2nd Street
Philadelphia PA

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I believe the noodles are all made on site"

They aren't.

hawk krall said...

I forgot where I heard that.. you would think if they were all done in house they would advertise it to death..

according to Philadelphia mag review (which was effing harsh) "some" noodles are made in house, and other are bought.