Call it Mom’s Chinese kitchen

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: August 24th, 2007 01:21 AM (PDT)

The menu at Hong Sheng Fung (aka “The Pot Sticker”) promises “authentic Chinese cuisine.” Chef-owner Jennifer Chang backs it up with bravado in her bright and airy strip-mall restaurant that opened July 20.

“These are my mother’s recipes,” said the Korean-born chef of Chinese descent, who modeled her restaurant on the one that her family has owned and operated in Pusan, Korea, since 1971. “I cook them how I want to, how they should be. If they don’t like it, tough.”

Tough is the opposite of her pork pettitos – boiled pigs’ feet with garlic sauce. Cold roast beef is another house special. Both made me swoon when I ordered the combo plate.

I enjoyed pettitos’ swiney simplicity: Shed of fat and served cold, the pigs’ feet were all about cartilage and collagen – chewy, almost creamy morsels accented by pockets of meat.

Boiled roast beef, sliced thin, revealed no fat, just layers of enjoyably dense meat flavored and blackened by soy and chili.

Other “authentic” dishes include jellyfish with cucumber and vinegar, and roasted chicken. Meals are served Korean-style, with banchan, the pickled and fresh veggie appetizer plates.

The menu also includes dishes friendly and familiar to American palates: tempura prawns, fried rice, and sweet-and-sour pork. As to the latter dish, I didn’t expect to find crunchy slices of black mushrooms, or sweetly marinated cucumber tossed among the battered pork and pineapple. An otherwise unimpressive dish made an impression.

Since “pot sticker” is in the restaurant’s parenthetical name, don’t forget to wrap your chopsticks around the bite-sized dumplings filled with pork and beef that Chang grinds herself. I loved the delicate crispness of the fried dumplings. The steamed ones slithered down deliciously, too. I’ll be back for the large dumplings, which Chang said are the size of a child’s foot.

HouRs: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays. Prices: $5.95-$16.95.

Woody’s Wharf 1710 Dock St., Tacoma; 253-272-1433

There’s a new fence outside the old Blue Olive, the martini lounge (and restaurant) that opened (and closed) at Thea’s Landing.

The plastic fence is among the few tweaks that Coy Woods, a former Fife hotelier, made to the Blue Olive’s “ultra-lounge” decor when he opened Woody’s Wharf on July 31, in the bottom floor of the waterfront condos.

The most striking change: The ice floe that ringed the surface of Blue Olive’s bar is gone.

The new fence enables more patio seating, but as a beacon to diners who transverse the railroad tracks to get to this side of town, it potentially cheapens what could be a good thing. The interior still feels like a polished lounge where beautiful people might sip and sup. But everything else, especially service, seems casual, almost as if Woody’s is longing for a day at the beach. The restaurant wears one flip-flop and one second-hand Manolo Blahnik.

If you’ve dined at any of Tacoma’s waterfront restaurants, you’ll recognize Woody’s menu: burgers, fish and chips, crab and artichoke dip, steak, seafood with fruit sauces.

Four days after Woody’s opened, I ordered fish tacos at the bar. Try as it might, sweet and earthy corn-and-black-bean salsa couldn’t mask the fish’s lack of freshness. Last week, mahi mahi was moist and forkable, way tastier than I’d imagined fish topped with hickory sauce and tropical salsa would be. On the downside, mold ruined the sourdough, and $19.50 was way too much to pay for three odd-shaped pieces of battered halibut with fries.

Hours: Here’s something I like: Woody’s Wharf serves lunch 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Woody’s is open for dinner Sundays-Thursdays 5-9:30 p.m. and Fridays-Saturdays 5-11 p.m. Lunch: $7.95-$13.95. Dinner: $15.50-$29.95. Full bar, with a handful of wines around $20 (or less) per bottle.

Ed Murrieta: 253-597-8678

ed.murrieta@thenewstribune.com

blogs.thenewstribune.com/edsdiner

Originally published: August 24th, 2007 01:21 AM (PDT)