Another fun meal, but with a full room, group conversation across / around the table seemed harder than usual.
My favorite dish of the night was new to me (which is always a fun benefit of these types of dinners) – the razor clams. They were sauteed simply with aromatics, but fresh and delicious.
The duck was good, though I prefer pancakes to buns in general (and the buns came packed with cucumber, which I don’t eat, so there was that). To me this duck was on par with what we ate at Jiang Nan, but having partaken a couple of times now, I’m just as happy with the take-home half ducks at the prepared food places nearby.
I enjoyed the anchovies a lot more than others did, apparently – they were well-fried and seasoned (though I could have used more spice), as also the snow pea leaves, which I thought were as good as last time.
There was too much similarly-prepared fried stuff on the table IMO. I found the grouper and the shrimp both over-battered (though fresh and well-fried). And everything was short of heat: usually the salt & pepper-style stuff has more hot stuff in the topping mix, both fresh and in the form sichuan peppercorns.
The seafood casserole was probably my least favorite – the sauce had congealed by the time it got to the table, and the seafood was overcooked to my taste. It was tied with the fried rice, which was flavorless.
Agree with @SteveR about the pork served cold – we had the same reaction last time, so I was surprised to see it on the table again.
I enjoy their wontons, but the broth is weak, so I’m curious if the appetizer version is chilli oil-style or something else.
Two things I missed from our last meal at Wu’s – the oysters with ginger and scallion and the scallion sauce chicken; both were more flavorful than everything on the table last night except the razor clams.
Another time I’d also like to try more meat options, as we’ve done a pretty thorough review of seafood between the two meals (for eg @vinouspleasure ate different stuff when he went back).
