I’m going back for the fish

DING FENG Florida Road, Morningside 031 303 2887, 071 853 2528 A CASUAL glance while driving up Florida Road spotted a new Chinese and sushi restaurant next to Mamma Luciana’s that looked bright and cheerful. And off we went.

The venue is not very big and two big tables of diners made the place look quite full. We sat down and minutes later more people arrived and ordered takeaways. This is clearly a popular place.

There was one waitress, who had her hands full, so we sat patiently waiting to order something to drink. We had been given the menus soon after sitting down.

Starter dishes include prawn crackers (R20), three-piece spring rolls including prawn, chicken, crab and vegetable (R22-R26), fried dumplings (R48) and pork dumplings (R48).

Main courses included the normal range one would expect, including dishes with black-bean sauce, sweet and sour dishes, various chop suey and fried-rice dishes, chow mein and foo yong (egg) dishes. There is also a sushi menu.

I liked the ambience of the place. It was light and bright and one did not feel boxed in. Finally it was our turn with the harried waitress and we took the opportunity to order our drinks – sparkling water (R15) and Tsingtao Chinese beer (R25) – starters and main courses at the same time.

For starters we chose the Won Ton soup (R30) and prawn spring rolls (R26). The soup had lovely subtle flavours and the six won tons were tasty. The spring rolls were also very good, lovely and crisp on the outside with a good mix of greens and prawn meat inside.

Our mains were the seafood fried rice (R60), filled with mussels, bits of fish and little prawns, and then steamed red fish (R98) with noodles.

Years ago I remember having steamed red fish with ginger at a Chinese restaurant in a gritty part of Joburg and enjoyed it enormously.

Out of nostalgia for those days I ordered Ding Feng’s version, and was delighted with my choice. The fish was fresh and cooked in such a way the moist flesh came away easily from the bones. The flavour was superb, winning high praise from both of us.

Of course, one has to deal with a fair number of smaller bones, but it was but a small inconvenience to savour this delicious dish. It would have been easy to finish the whole lot but I resisted the temptation and took some home.

On the way home we were both talking about what dishes we would have on our next visit, but I might just go for the steamed fish again. Ratings (out of five) Food Service Ambience