This weekend we ventured out to Beaverton to Jin Wah for a dim sum breakfast. Jin Wah is on the Beaverton/Hillsdale highway, just west of 217, in that maze of strip malls. It is right across the street (north) from the Fred Meyer. Next door is Marinepolis, the conveyor belt sushi place.

Jin Wah bills itself as a Vietnamese restaurant, and if you check out their menu it features standard Viet fare (soups, bun, etc.) with Chinese offerings as well. On weekends they do a pretty standard fare dim sum. While on the whole, their dim sum is not as good as Wong’s King in SE Portland, it is much more accessible. On a Sunday morning at 10:30 AM, for instance, you’ll be hard pressed to find a seat at Wong’s without a substantial wait. This morning we were seated immediately in Jin Wah’s large dining room.

Also, Wong’s is so packed that you’ll have difficulty connecting with the various dim sum carts as they make their way through the dining room. High-demand items might be snatched away before the cart even makes it to your table — it took almost an hour last time I was there to secure a squid order. Not so at Jin Wah — the carts and waitresses pushing them are prolific enough that you don’t feel left out.

Here’s what I sampled:

• Shrimp har gow. These were good. The shrimp were fairly innocuous, but fresh tasting.
• Shrimp/vegatable dumplings with chives and dried shrimp. These had a slightly interesting taste, but were just ok.
• Chicken feet braised in anised broth. Bland. Better at Wong’s King, which does theirs with a flavorful black bean sauce.
• Massive shrimp meatballs coated in rice flour and rolled in chow fun noodles, and then fried. The waitress snipped these in half before serving with a thick sweet and sour sauce. The shrimp meat tasted "off" and these were not very good. I’m not sure if this replaces the sugar cane shrimp I had last time I was here, as this time these were noticeably absent. If so, that would be a shame – the sugar cane shrimp featured fried, battered shrimp meatballs and were quite good.
• Stuffed been curd sheets, stuffed with wood ear mushrooms, ground pork and shrimp. These were really good, very tender and full of flavor.
• Salt and pepper squid. Nice size portion of freshly battered (rice flour) and fried squid chunks, including tentacle ends. The squid is dusted with finely ground salt and pepper, and tossed with stir fried garlic, onions (green and yellow), and jalapeno rings. This was excellent (my favorite) and is a better preparation than what Wong’s King serves.
• Steamed chinese broccoli. A large portion of perfectly steamed greens and stems, mounded on a platter and doused with a few squirts of oyster sauce.

Total price came to $33 for two people.

I had a very good meal at Alberta Street Oyster Bar and Grill last weekend.

It was the first time I’ve been. It’s a charming spot sandwiched between Bernie’s Southern Bistro and Bella Faccia Pizza on the south side of Alberta, a few blocks west of 33rd. The dining area forms a L around a large bar area, and the ambiance was welcoming on an early Saturday evening.

We started off with the House Cut Fries with Spicy Roumelade. The fries were sufficiently crispy, though of course I think they needed more salt (salt is my favorite food). The roumelade was very pleasantly piquant – my wife and I ate each fry down to the last crispified nub. My wife loved the creamy garlic dressing on her romaine salad, which I also thought was great. The salad featured some briny nicoise olives, and a single, thin crouton about the size of a small remote.

My panko fried oysters were dynamite. I usually try to avoid cooked oysters, but I have a weakness for anything panko battered. The appetizer featured 3 perfectly fried oysters (I forgot to ask what type of oyster – they were medium sized, larger than the kumamotos I treaure), topped with a warm bacon vinagrette, frisee, and crowned with a single, poached quail egg. After piercing the egg and allowing the yolk to spill, the combination of flavors and textures really hit the spot. In my opinion, oysters become a bit “gamey” and creamy when cooked, but paired with creamy quail yolk, the acidity of the vinagrette (including chewy little bacon nibblets), and the airy crispiness of the frisee greens (and the panko batter itself), these oysters really shined.

My wife had the burger, which in execution I admit was sort of half-baked. First of all, she asked for her burger well done, despite my admonishments over the years to never ask for anything ever well done. But what can you do. This burger, though, suffers more in concept due to the ciabatta bun – the sandwich itself is difficult to put away. The ciabatta, which reminds me of what Delfina’s sells over at their bakery on 42nd Ave., needed more of a toast to really hold up as a burger bun — it was really too chewy to act as a proper foil for the meat. My wife complained the blue cheese was too sparse, and the garnish of pale-looking tomatoes (it’s November though) and three cornichons was too simple. The burger was topped with bacon that was too undercooked for my wife’s liking – no fault of ASOBG, that is her own preference.

For my entree I opted for the duck breast, sliced at a bias and served atop honey glazed root vegetables and potato gnochhi. The duck was roasted, more medium rare than rare, and was extremely tender and flavorful. Duck breast is one of my favorite “red” meats. The root vegetables of potatos and carrots were cooked perfectly, and the gnocchi were toothsome and tender at the same time. The entire dish intermingled with what I think was a cilantro (“Coriander” on the menu) oil, and I thought I could discern other green herbs as well. All in all, a very satisfying dish, one I paired with self-sliced “lardons” from the wonderfully rich and smokey bacon discarded from my wife’s burger — this actually was amazing.

Service was efficient and friendly. Our server we recognized from Cia Vito back in the day. We skipped desert and went to Pix.

For a more comprehensive and well-written writeup on this place, check out the review at Food Dude’s place and what other diners have posted at Portlandfood.org. I will be back to explore more items on the menu, and would like to try their happy hour (all night Sundays and Mondays). This place is a great anchor to the Concordia/Alberta neighborhood.