China Gourmet 福州风味小吃

The largest population of FuZhou people I believe is in New York, especially the Flushing, Queens area.Anyways, we came back to this FuZhou restaurant for breakfast and tried their Egg Noodles with Pork and Pan-fried Bun. We like the taste of the Pork and the way they prepared it here. Simple comfort food that probably won't get any media spotlight, but we could see many FuZhou customers come in for breakfast already in the morning.

I know this place because it's my husband hometown cuisine, he is from China Fujian province, it's our every weekend brunch place.seafood rice noodle soup, steam dumpling, flat meat ( wonton made of meat wrapper) are our favorite, these are very authentic local food. The young couple are chef and owner , they are very nice, treat client like friend.

Love this place and the food. It used to be Taiwanese food now it's fuzhou food. Food is delicious and service is fast. Cash payment only

I took my sister to China Gourmet 福州风味小吃 because she said there was no Fuzhou cuisine in SJ/SF Bay Area. Wow. We must be lucky in Houston. We got 2 Fuzhou restaurants within the same street block in Houston Chinatown.For those not familiar with Fuzhou cuisine, it is on the mild side of Chinese food. Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian Province, which is neighboring to Guangdong Province (aka Cantonese food) and across the ocean is Taiwan (aka Taiwanese food). Some Yelp reviewers mistaken their dishes with Cantonese dim sum. I think it was because few dishes got close resemblance when they are served in baskets. Fuzhou cuisine at China Gourmet made popular at Dynasty Plaza. This hold-in-the-wall restaurant is between Le Lai and the entrance to the mall entrance. You have to look around the pillar to find the door. Looking from inside of the mall, you can see people enjoying their food at the restaurant. What a pleasant sight.I have tried few unique items that is not served at any restaurants:Flat Meat 扁肉 = a unique soup made with wrappers thinner than wonton wrap. Meat is not flat. Just a name. Also, the wrappers are made with pork. That's why they're crunchy.Xiao Long Bao 小籠包 = They serve the freshest xiaolongbao (not soupy ones). Because they make them in small batches. They often ran out in the afternoon. They sure are tiny, as I'm more accustomed to.Stew Pot Soup 炖罐系列 = Another small batched cuisine. Each soup bowl is self-contained with all kinds of nutritional ingredients. My favorite is the black chicken soup.There are more to explore. I just have to come to the right time to catch other dishes. They accept cash and some kind of electronic payment method, just not credit cards.

My husband was super excited to find a Fuzhou street food eatery in Houston. Typical this type of food you will only find in New York, where there is a large population of Fuzhou people. My husband ordered the taro cake, oyster and veggie cake, a beed offal noodle soup, and a Fuzhou rice cake noodle soup. They were all tasty. Hubby said it brought back childhood memories. Service was quick too!

Despite being one of the country's largest Chinatowns, Houston constantly surprises me with how limited the regional Chinese variety is throughout the city and especially along Bellaire Blvd. Among those cuisines, the Fuzhou scene has been scarce and with the recent closure (and subsequent mourning) of Yi Zhang (#1), I've been on a quest to find any place that offers Fuzhounese / Fujianese / Fukinese food of any kind.Enter the China Gourmet, which I thought was the old Taiwanese / Minnan cuisine spot (#2) aka, 喜富來台菜餐廳 but transferred ownership nearly 2 years ago. The English name remains the same, but the Chinese name has changed to 福州风味小吃 (#3) which roughly translates to Fuzhou's Local Flavor Snacks. It is located on the outside corner of Dynasty Plaza Mall, adjacent to the way more popular Le Lai Restaurant (#4).This isn't a place for everyone. It's a bit divey, cash only, probably not even date friendly, no restrooms or utensils beyond chopsticks, slow and steady service, and is not the most approachable establishment for folks not savvy with these foods. There is no pretension here and hardly anything fancy. Basically ... my kind of place.This is the kind of eatery I would have expected to see in a place like NYC, where the largest community of Fuzhou folks live in the world outside of China. The old school divey ambiance is still in play, except in a much larger space that sits empty almost every time I've ever been here.It's currently being run by a Fuzhounese couple, who left NYC in search of more simple pastures and somehow ended up here in Houston. (#5) Most of the patrons are Chinese, with a handful that can actually converse in their mother tongue. Mandarin should be enough to get by, even if English is somewhat limited. Don't let any of this deter you, because this place is as real as it gets.There are no QR codes or menus on the table, just point at the menu on the wall, which is also a picture menu. There are an array of Fuzhou style dishes that range from small plates to noodle soups. All of it is super legit.I enjoyed their classic peanut noodle (拌面), which was excellent. It's a small portion and practically double price wise in NY, but still worth it for my tastebuds at $4. Their fried taro (芋頭糕) was greasy, but definitely had the right flavors. The staple of Fuzhou food, their meat stuffed fish ball (魚丸) was so juicy that I think I could have easily eaten 10 of them. The accompanying soup had a nice aromatic flavor to it, which would be perfect for colder weather or broth-lovers.They are the only place in Houston that serves Fujianese style XLB (小籠包), which is more akin to the baozi where the term originates from, rather than the soup dumpling that most people are accustomed to. The meat is a different kind of pork-based meat chives and more of a gravy than a soup. The gravy gets soaked in by the bao and the splash effect isn't going to be there. This is the same filling for their crispy bun version of shengjian bao (生煎包), but is okay as a first time dish. Folks looking for more savory choices might enjoy their stir fried mix seafood / pork noodles (海鮮炒肉面) or their rice vermicelli version (海鮮炒粉​干). Soup / stew enthusiasts will likely enjoy their dedicated section of the menu (炖罐系列), which is a variety of mushrooms, ginger, and seafood / meat protein. folks with an adventurous palate can shoot for their beef offal or their tripe (which they've dubbed hilariously as "cattle slippery") (牛滑捞化). Their sea oyster cake (海蛎饼) and peanut gnocchi (花生汤圆) are both unique Fujian dishes / desserts that I've not seen anywhere in the neighborhood.China Gourmet 2.0 is now going to be part of regular rotation of frequented eateries in Chinatown. It is hardly a destination for most folks, but anyone looking for a little taste of Fuzhou in Houston should come here ASAP. ____________(#1) https://www.yelp.com/biz/YCxVafMZNtdc1H2AYEzPnw(#2) https://www.yelp.com/biz/xbN_R--xSa5wKZKfHkgzIQ(#3) 簡體字, 繁體字, 大家都接受(#4) https://www.yelp.com/biz/le-lai-houston(#5) This story sounds so oddly familiar ... oh I know, it's me too!

I really want to say I liked this place because of the reviews but this was unfortunately not for my tastebud. The mix noodle tasted mushy and the other noodle dishes were bland and one of the dumplings had a sour taste.The service was pretty bad. We asked for water and the server gave a group of 11 just ONE cup of water. Seems to be many workers but just 1 server. We ended up getting our own water, it was in a cooler (similar to the big Gatorade jugs)This restaurant was a little hard to find since the door was hidden behind the pole. It looked clean but don't let that fool you. The tables were really sticky, luckily I had wet wipes handy to wipe it down a little. While I was getting my food and spinning the lazy Suzy a spider came crawling out from underneath!