Lei Garden - Washington D.C.
Location: 6.5 Jocey Faces
Located in the middle of Chinatown in Washington D.C., just past the traditional gate to the area that most Chinatowns have, it has a rather interesting position on the street. On one hand, it's very close to the MCI Center (which is where the Washington Wizards play ... Washington D.C.'s answer to the Staple Center in LA), so many of those patrons and business draw traffic to the area. But on the other hand, something that I will be mentioning in the next segment makes it difficult to get to.
Parking: 3 Jocey Faces
Parking in the East coast is significantly different than parking on the West coast. Working with a lot less space, businesses had no room to place parking lots, so they basically made consumers park on the curb ... which is what my family and I had to do. It was quite a walk to get from our parking spot to the restaurant. I could handle it, but if you have problems with your feet, or are just fatigued easily, then choose somewhere else to park.
Cleanliness: 5 Jocey Faces
The carts that were pushed around for the dim sum were well maintained, but what made me score their cleanliness so low was the fact their floor was not swept well, their vacuum was in plain sight from my table, and there was a clothing rack out that had several uniforms hanging from hangers ... next to the stairs that led to the exit. Yeah ... it wasn't a pretty picture.
Ambiance: 7 Jocey Faces
The restaurant itself was 2 stories: the regular restaurant on the bottom floor, with the dim sum service on the top floor. The top floor was quite spacious. If dim sum wasn't being served, it looked as if it could have been used as a banquet space for a wedding or something like that. Pleasant music playing in the background helped make the experience somewhat peaceful, seeing as my family hadn't really slept the night before.
Service: 8 Jocey Faces
Outside of having some food items unavailable right away, the service was rather good. Whenever I go to a dim sum place, my drink of choice is water, and I through many glasses. At Lei garden, the bus "MAN" (yes he was a 70 year old man that knew Fukien like my dad) would always make sure that everyone's water glass was filled. No glass went unlooked. Very attentive. Also, even though some of the food was unavailable, the food that WAS available was rather plentiful, and they traveled around the room several times, making rounds to all the tables.
Quality Of Food: 7.5 Jocey Faces
All of the shrimp items from the menu that I had were delicious ... plus compared to other dim sum restaurants, I had a larger selection of shrimp items. Unfortunately a lot of the other items were rather bland. You needed a lot of the provided soy sauce to enhance the flavor in some way, making it actually salty (which in turn made me thirstier). But if all you want to get is shrimp dim sum items, this is the place to be.
Final Score: 6.2 Jocey Faces | 
