Ping Pong Dim Sum

Service 5 stars. Now that that’s done…
Terrible food. Very rarely do I come into a place where the food is so subpar. I should have trusted the Unilocal rating!
The food breakdown:
— crispy green beans: probably the best dish minus it was cold and the mayonnaise sauce was just that, sweet mayonnaise
— «very» (not) spicy chicken wings: literally fried wings covered in chili sauce
— crab and corn dumplings: crabby, not in the good way, shells and all
— edamame and truffle dumpling: liked the truffle flavor but wasn’t worth the bang for the buck
— 5 spice pork fried rice: pork was cold and the rice was sticky rice, not fried
— duck fried rolls: lots of fried roll, little duck
— crispy eggplant: undercooked and bitter
All of the accompanying sauces were too sweet and didn’t add anything to the dish.
Do not come here for good dim sum. Strictly a «maybe to try it once because you didn’t believe the reviews» happy hour with friends.

It’s a great place to go… after you’ve been here at least once. Some of the fusion creations are… unique and conflicts with my traditional dim-​sum palate. But hey, we need more of the revolutionary dim-​sum to sweep the East Coast, as the phenomena has picked up on the West Coast and Vancouver/​Canada area. I will say this was a much-​welcomed reprieve after a very stuffy and un-​filling banquet at Darlington House.
The Crispy chicken with orange chili glaze is exactly as you may think it is. Just a glorified orange chicken from Panda. Overly/​sickly sweet and deeply fried batter… please avoid.
The Crispy duck spring rolls on the other hand were very good. Good balance of duck, fat, crispiness, and the supplied hot chili flake sauce made it a welcome favorite. Likewise, with the Crispy prawn balls done in the traditional Dim-​Sum sense (cue up the endless food carts roaming around Oriental East).
Char-​Sui (pork buns) were delicious… only if it didn’t need an extra hand to eat it. The bun just disintegrated after the first touch or in my case… the first bite. Spoolsh… straight into my plate. I had to use chopsticks to finish the meal and I was not pleased at that. Flavor-​wise, it met expectation. Good balance of sweet and savory… but again towards the sweeter side.
Poached Lobster Dumpling… sounds great on paper (I mean, what’s better than lobster? poached lobster. and now you’re saying its gonna be wrapped within a steamed dumpling skin? BRING IT ON). Ugh, its just one of those fusion creations that really clash with your tastebuds. Richness of the butter clashes directly with the clean, fresh feeling of the shittake and then it gets really busy once the ginger, beet, and cilantro crash the party. Just way too much going on to give you any sort of continuity for the dish.
Shu-​Mai were also hit-​or-​miss. Pork ShuMai is excellent by itself, but the inclusion of crab and berry is a bit much. Pork+Crab would have been outstanding.
The meatballs were strangely addicting… and that is what perplexes me as it is nor a Chinese staple or Dim-​Sum. Good plus. Dumplings were not memorable and nothing really fusion about it. That is most disappointing because it is here where most Asian Fusion places shy away from being creative, bold, and unique. Give me some crazy Scallop, Pork, Cilantro, Jalapeño Pepper concoction! Heck, infuse half a meatball with the traditional pork/​leek arrangement!
But the real star (s) of the show from Ping Pong are the cocktails and dessert. Unbelievably good. I will come back just to try all of them! And the bubble tea affogato… now THATS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. Excellent Fusion between Italian and Asian flavors. Coffee, Milk Tea, Bubbles… cannot go wrong. I feel like this dessert should be picked up at Asian BBT establishments alike. It’s honestly what saved this review from a 2.5 to 3 star.

Came for a happy hour date, but ouch did this atmosphere kill the vibe. We were the only two in the restaurant for a while. Not a fun bustling crowd to be found here.
The boozy boba drink was really neat and tasty too!
But I can’t say the same for anything else. Their dumplings had no flavor. Even worse, my date had never eaten a dumpling before and I just got done telling him how good they are.
A local takeout joint has more flavorful options.

Party of 14 on New Year’s eve. We had ONE waiter for our entire table. In the beginning it seemed like he was able to handle us all, but not sure what happened to him, he just went bizarre on us. He barely came around for us to even ask for utensils when we needed them so we would ask the waiters who brought out our food. When he found out we had asked someone else for utensils… he yelled at us saying don’t ask anyone else for anything just ask him. We wouldn’t have minded asking just him but he never came around, what were we supposed to do… wait and let our food get cold?
Not only was his attitude a problem, but when we ordered certain dishes… we were never told they were out of it… so we just kept waiting and then finally decided to ask about the rest of the dishes… only then he told us they didn’t have it. Half of our table didn’t even get their orders taken so they were waiting over half an hour to just get their drinks…
Being a big group of course we spent a lot of $$$$, we should at least get better service.
The two stars is for their great tasting food and drinks. Loved the chicken sliders and wings and the hibiscus mojito/spritzer…as well as the lychee rose martini.
Will debate if I want to come back here again…

Hubs and I were in the area Saturday after a walk and were STARVING, so went on the hunt for brunch. I have had Ping Pong bookmarked for like a year, so I was excited to finally stop in. Apparently they were super slow, we got there at 12 and were literally the only people in the building for a little bit. I was also surprised they were out of four items on the brunch menu, they had only been open 30 minutes, so I guess their Friday night was a good one? IDK.
We ended up ordering unlimited brunch (although we didn’t really need to) and I ordered a mimosa. I absolutely loved the little pearls of juice, yeah sure, it’s a gimmick, but I fell for it hook line and sinker and would absolutely order this again!
Having never been here before I made sure to ask our server if we ordered everything all at once or if we should stagger and he said we could order now and things would just come out when they were ready. OK fine, maybe during normal service that would be the case, but being the only people there, everything came out all at once. So we precariously balanced plates, trays and sauces, but somehow managed to fit everything on a small two top (thank goodness for stacking bins).
I ordered the shrimp and grits and was surprised that they came out cold and bland, but my husband loved his pork belly benie. I wasn’t a huge fan of the lobster dumpling, duck bun or the blue crab and sweet corn shu mai (again hubs liked all those) but LOVED the pork shu mai (I could eat tray after tray of this!), spicy vegetable dumpling and lychee mochi ice cream.
Overall it was kind of mixed experience. The food is OK, I loved the spicy chili cause they gave us and thought that helped several things (especially my sad shrimp and grits) and our server was great. I guess it just really wasn’t what I expected, maybe I caught them on an off day, but I’m not sure what the fuss is about.