New King Fung Garden

Usually, I never talk about restaurants on this blog, but I couldn't not talk about this place, especially after today...

My friend Phu and I were in Boston's Chinatown to get dinner after a day of window-shopping, and walking through the rain.  Chinatown has a lot of places to eat, but there's only one place we love to go to consistently, and that place is New King Fung Garden.  I know the name sounds like a feng shui type of thing, but it's a restaurant, and it serves great, affordable food.  I had never heard of it before until my friend Phu took me there years ago, but ever since, we've made it one of our regular dining destinations whenever we're in Chinatown or just want to eat good food on the cheap.  Today was one of those days.

So we're walking in Chinatown, and we get to the location of the restaurant, when we walk in and see flowers on the outside, new tables, and people we've never seen before.  At first, I question if it's the same restaurant with just a different name, but my friend Phu realized it wasn't once he saw the food.  We were caught off guard by what we discovered, so we asked the people who are now at the current location if they knew where New King Fung Garden is?  They say they do, which is great, and give us directions, but that's where the day turns to frustration.  We followed the directions the people gave to us, yet we still got lost, and we walked around Chinatown for at least half an hour, but couldn't find it anywhere.  It was so disappointing, especially since we were both hungry and craving the place.  We didn't concede easily, but we eventually did for the day, going with our second option to eat, which was Sal's Pizza in Downtown Boston.  It was good, but it wasn't New King Fung Garden good with their giant scallion pancakes, real crab rangoons, etc.  But after the miserable day we had, I couldn't complain.

After reading this, I'm sure you're wondering why my friend and I would make such a fuss about one restaurant, especially in Chinatown where there are tons of places to eat?  I have several answers why that is the case.  One, the food at New King Fung Garden is affordable, delicious, and different than any other place I've been too.  Secondly, their service is good, and the ownership is family run.  Third, the place is a small business, so I always root for those places to succeed, especially in a place like Boston with the Back Bay and North End.  And lastly, I make a fuss about it because it's a place my friends and I can eat where we know what to expect.  That may not sound like a big deal, but since we're older, we've seen places we used to go to change, which has made it hard to find a new "place", but New King Fung Garden was one of those places, which is something that can't be replaced easily.  I know it the place isn't gone, but since my friend and I can't find it for now, like they say near the end of "Gone With The Wind", "Where shall we go?  What shall we do"?  Well, for now, I don't know, but we'll figure it out.