Whenever I divulge in Eastern dining, I find myself spending a ridiculously long amount of time with the menu, leaving the other members of my party glaring at me over their sodas that they’ve been sipping on for the last hour and a half.
The really great thing about Jessie Wong’s Kitchen, in the newly renovated Hunt Valley shopping center, is its opportunity for sharing and combination dinners. With an extensive menu of sushi, sashimi and traditional Malaysian dinners, indecisive customers like yours truly can dine out, without pissing off their friends or coworkers.
The atmosphere in Wong’s is classy and simple. Soft lighting and jazz music create an elegant and romantic mood, with a piano player gracing the customers at dinner hours. The walls are lined with red cherry oak and purple paint and the food is cooked on a large stage which overlooks the dining area making. There are decorative sculptures and standees of Japanese dancers and Buddhas, with large glass walls dividing the kitchen and dining area, making the general setup in the restaurant truly beautiful.
Per usual for an Asian restaurant, there are a number of women in garb racing around to make sure your glass is never even half empty. They were helpful and sweet, and very knowledgeable about the workings of the restaurant.
The traditional dinners are served in stylistic wooden boxes, which accent the minimally modern décor inside the restaurant. Where typical Asian dining leaves you with an unbearably large mountain of General Shoe’s Chicken, and maybe an egg roll if you have room, Wong’s boxes are divided into five or six spaces, each filled with a different food group, leaving food pyramid sticklers happy and full. There is also a vegetable bar, with steamed and boiled veggies in interesting Asian sauces.
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We ordered a few of the entrée dinners, as well as a few sushi and sashimi combination dinners, and everything – including the somewhat soppy seaweed salad – was tasty. The meats and veggies were well-made and the sushi, although swimming in an obscene number of fish eggs, was refreshing.
The dessert menu includes Asian items as well as American ones. Strawberry banana cake, coconut flan with caramel, and chocolate mousse are just a few of the yummy choices.
The prices on the menu seem outrageous, until you realize that each entree is served with a salad, rice and dessert. The one item however, which had us shooting confused and astounded looks and both the check and the waitress, was their traditional tea. It is served in a small pot, which can fill about two small cups. The trick is, it’s priced by the cup and not the pot – and at $2 a cup, that teabag must have been dipped in silver and the water in gold.
In general however, the experience was cheerful, classy and tasty, and I definitely plan to return. |