Fong Chong Restaurant

So sad they closed! I will miss you tea leaf rice! And everything else made from shrimp and pea. Will miss the greenbeans with black bean sauce.

Fong Chong is a quiet Chinese place. That is unusual. I think there was a kitchen somewhere. There was one person behind a counter with the usual stuff to make a drink although the entire place is designed for someone to come and eat, not drink.
I ordered the Kung Pao Chicken. (I did not order the dim sum.) The Kung Pao Chicken was a lunch special. It seems to be a standard meal — some type of cream cheese thing and egg roll. I want to say that the Kung Pao Chicken was rather tasty. It was hot. It did not have a lot of peanuts but it was good. I’ve been looking for a good Kung Pao chicken that is somewhat spicy and the dish that I ordered reached that hazy line. I would say that the meal was satisfactory because of that minimal taste «line». The tea was prompt. It is al what I wanted. I think this place has silence cornered as a sense of «atmosphere» — take that if you will.
It’s a full «meh» but I will give it more credit because of that one dish.

Fong Chong was adequate for dim sum for two hungry travelers, but definitely not amazing (maybe a 2.5). Best was the custard pastry, cold BBQ pork and nice Jasmine tea, followed by the bok choy. Was not a big fan of the other items I tried, but my less picky bf enjoyed himself. Would not deliberately return, but would not freak out if I was compelled to.

Dropping through Portland from Seattle, and stopped by during their off hours, after breakfast but before lunch. Took us a while to find dim sum in the downtown area, and settled on here. The Unilocal reviews do explain most of these places; mediocre. The food was decent, but not particularly special. Some dishes came after 15 mins (we did drop by during an empty time), but the baked/​sweet goods were still on the carts from the morning.
If you’re from Seattle or San Fran looking for Chinese, don’t expect the variety back home. Head to Beaverton or a food cart.

The bad reviews are unfortunately true. Salty, cheap, lots of filler & no substance. Dim sum selection horrible. Even the chili sauce was stale tasting and didn’t mask awful taste. Plus, more expensive than it should’ve been, considering it was absolute crap. Do not go. ~Cate

Went there for lunch and had the lunch special ($ 6.50/person) and dim sum (very large variety). They served the dim sum very promptly and the food was out quickly and hot. Everything was brought out together and could be eaten individually or family style.
The food was delicious and the servers were attentive. It was not a fancy atmosphere, and the bathrooms were disgusting, but the food more than made up for it.

This is the worst example of dim sum we have ever seen. Cold cart was walked past us, nothing looked good. Hot cart was walked into the back, then walked back out for us. The male server tossed all the tin lids to the side making lots of noise, and he seemed annoyed, irritated, and a little pissed. We got three dishes, he came back in short order with some items steaming, and was like «What you don’t like these dishes» with hand gestures. We got one. I took a bite of my shumi and spat it back out, yuk cold old food. We got up and left the girl working kept yelling «you eat you pay!» Do not go here, nothing of quality here.

Three of us went in for dim sum, came out with very full bellies for a total of $ 30. Can’t complain about that! The waiters were really intent on having us receive all the various dim sum they could throw our way (probably to rack up the bill), so you need to be steadfast in your no’s when you’re done.
I would list the dishes we had, but it all blends together after a while!

Best dim sum dishes. Hit and miss on certain ones though. Shrimp toast and steam pork spare ribs are my favorite. Shrimp ball and shrimp shu mai ok, not the best in town. Will do for downtown dim sum though.

haven’t been to this place for years, and we decided to go to our old standard. never disappoints. its easy to eat too much here, since its dim sum, but its hard NOT to get so much goodness.
sticky rice, humbow, hog gow, turnip cake, and beyond, tasty shrimps in clear casings, and egg tart so tasty. everything is just so lovely, and tasty. the only thing that might scare you here? is the aged condition of bathrooms, and old school ness because this place has been here forever, BUT its the bomb. giant potstickers, and cheap prices.
thanks for the years of great dim sum. still good after all these years.

This place has great Dim Sum! The portions are huge (biggest pot stickers I’ve seen anywhere), the food is delicious (try the crab puffs) and the prices are very reasonable. My wife and I ate dinner and had enough left over for lunch the next day and it only came to $ 45.
I’ve only ever been there for dinner and it’s always been nearly empty, but other Unilocalers say they have a huge lunch rush.
It’s true that the bathrooms look and smell awful. If it weren’t for that, I’d give this place 5 stars.

We use to love to have dim sum here, but the bathrooms are so gross that it ruins our appetite.
I wonder if Dirty Dining has been by.

How I love Dim Sum. A great place for a good meal. However, watch out for the waitress who actually asked me if I left a tip on the table. When she did that I went over to the table and exchanged my $ 5 for a $ 1 and said you would have more if you where not rude. Will not be back because the service was not the best and she was rude.

Today is my last day in Portland Oregon, I wanted to check out Old Chinatown before heading out. I miss my weekly dim-​sum when I was home, so I decided to give Fong Chong a try.
FOOD ORDERED:
Item #1: Chinese Sausage w/​Sticky Rice
I split the the sticky rice in half and i see Chinese pork meat not sausage. So i thought maybe they got it mixed up. I took a bite out of the pork and it was old, chew, and super dry.
Item #2: Shrimp Chow Fun
The chow fun was sour and overdue! Every dim sum on my table were either leftover, overdue, or was once frozen.
Item #3: Chicken Feet
I know. i LOVE CHICKEN FEET. -.- Do not judge me. However, they brought this out and it was COLD! I requested to provide me one that is cooked and hot (warm at least). They brought out a new bowl. It was hot on the outside, but really cold to the core. Must of been frozen and reheated when ordered.
item #4: Shrimp + Scallop Dim Sum
It was not fresh and had a hint of fish taste.
Recommendation to Fong Chong–
I highly recommend they start cleaning up the premises. Provide a clean and much more professional menu. Clean up the shop and make it more of a restaurant, not a cafeteria. Also, start using fresh products and food every time. Saving leftover and re-​heating frozen food is a NO-​NO.

This was a hard review to write.
I’ve lived in Portland for a dozen years now and as another reviewer says «I remember the heyday»…
There must’ve been some serious changes in ownership/​management/​finances since my last visit.
If I’d written a review based on my previous visits it would be a solid three stars.
This was the first time I’ve ever gone for dim sum and NOT had the tray brought around.
Most recent visit:
We went in, the lady asked if we wanted dim sum. we said «yes» and before we could blink, she was shoving cheap menus in our faces and a booklet of blurry, un-​labeled photos of dim sum items.
She returned too soon, demanding our order.
*this place is the size of a cafeteria and it was empty, so i don’t know why the cart couldn’t come out and i don’t understand the huge rush on us to order.
every single item was horrific.
we had some green beans, some duck, pork bao, some wontons/​dumplings and some spring rolls. these are all pretty straightforward items that one would imagine being a challenge to fuck up, but no, every single dish was worse than the one before. we didn’t eat half of any one item.
then, the check came.
it was more than it should’ve been, they clearly pulled a «you’re white, we’re gonna write everything in chinese so you don’t know what’s up» move.
while we were picking at the dishes and drinking tea, the only other diners got up to pay their bill and they too found that they were being overcharged on their menu items.
it was at this point we both realized that we’d forgotten our bank cards and between us, only had half the bill in cash.
now, i’m a service industry veteran and i’ve NEVER done a dine and dash (admittedly, there have been a couple of occasions at McMenamin’s establishments, where, after trying for thirty minutes to pay the check, walking out).
this was a first.
we dropped the cash on the table, waited til the waitress went to the kitchen and bolted, running for several blocks, winding up and down streets.
the food was bad, the service was worse and they were openly scamming people.
i don’t feel bad.
if they weren’t scammers and/​or the lady was nice, i would feel really guilty and would’ve returned with the difference.
:-X

I didn’t want to believe it but I could swear that there were 9 items on my tab for dim sum but then when I handed over my tab to get it tallied I saw another X mark increasing our total to 10. I even kept tallying in my head how many items we had and I’d come out with 9. I didn’t want to believe that they would be so bold as to add onto my ticket for something I did not get.
I will never go back there.
And we were charged a $ 1 for tea that we did not ask for.
I think the waitress knew I would have had a fit if we were charged $ 2 each for tea, so she didn’t dare but now, I am not surprised by the bad reviews.

What I ate: Assorted dim sum and fruits
Visit date: September 3, 2011
First time? Yes, recommended by a friend.
Portland Chinatown is basically a ghost town, at least when I was there. Luckily, I had a friend who was a local and could recommend a place for dim sum. Fong Chong had friendly staff and a good selection. They had some new-​to-​me dim sum dishes (and I do have my share of dim sum in the East Bay). O, and the stuffed jalapenos are actually spicy. A PLUS! Another O, this might have been the first dim sum place I’ve been to that serves fresh fruits. Yum!
Price-​wise, it’s a bit more than what I’m used to paying for dim sum, but hey — supply and demand, right?

Some friends and I were going for Dim Sum last weekend. i suggested places on or near 82^nd as it seems those are the places to go, but they wanted to go downtown. I was along for the ride and always like to try new places. We found our way to Fong Chong.
I’m not going to recommend Fong Chong as there are places that are better out on and around 82^nd. If you happen to be in «Chinatown» then Fong Chong is a place you could stop at. There are others, but this is the only one I’ve had Dim Sum at.
Had the chicken feet. It was my first time. They were tasty. The Bao (one of my favorite things ever) tasted like they might have been frozen. I was disappointed with that. The rest of it was fine.
Not sure I would rush to come back here. It was A-​OK as my 3 stars show, but I like my Dim Sum to be as good as it gets. Not here though.

It had only been a few months since my last visit here so I was amazed by how much the quality had changed during that time. It may have already been on the decline but I had not eaten there in such a longtime that maybe I was holding on to my memory of this place being good. Sad to say, but I’m not really a fan anymore. Sorry Fong Chong. I’m hoping you guys are just having a bad year and reclaim your former glory in the near future.
A hui hou.

This review is strictly for the Dim Sum, been here several times, in fact this is my go to place for Dim Sum. Yes, I will agree with some of the reviews, it was better when Bob Louie ran the place, but then I was better 20 years ago also.
But hey, I don’t know of another place in town that has the Dim Sum selection they do here, the carts hustle by so you have lots of opportunity to try something different, and if you want to order something special, it comes out fast. The food is always good.
Another big plus is the wait staff here actually speak English so that you can understand it, nothing is worse than looking at some little tidbit on the steamer cart and not being able to understand what the mystery filling is behind that steamed wrapper.
Some of my faves are: Ho Gow, shu mai, ginger wrapped chicken, stuffed jalapeño, chicken and pea, shrimp and Scallop, chicken wing, bbq pork.