It’s F*&$King Raw (Far East Descendant Review)

August 30th, 2023

Authored by Nina Wilson and Dynisha Murray

Picture this. You see a new restaurant pop up on your newsfeed on either Tiktok or Instagram. Your favorite influencer raves about how amazing the food is, How great of a time they had, and how “you’ve just got to try it.” So one night, you decide to go. See if any of the hype is worthwhile. Is the food going to be the best thing you’ve ever eaten in your life? Or the worse?

Let’s take you through our experience at Far East Descendant and let’s find out together. Far East Descendant, is a modern cantonese restaurant located on the edge of chinatown. It is owned by Kevin Wong, who opened the restaurant on September 16th, 2019. Wong was adamant to state the cuisine of the restaurant is “not traditional cantonese nor fusion.” (Wooder Ice) Rather a reimagining of traditional Cantonese dishes in modern ways. Wong, who grew up in a household in which his parents owned a cantonese take out restaurant, has no restaurant experience.(Wooder Ice) Therefore, Far East Descendant is his first soiree in the restaurant industry.

Our visit to Far East Descendant fell on a nice and sunny summer morning. We took advantage of the rooftop dining that Far East is known for. In fact it’s a rooftop that has landed Far East Descendant Number 8 out of 24 on the Visit Philly best rooftop bars of philly list (Visit Philly). We made reservations in advance for brunch, although based on our visit to the restaurant it was completely empty, so it’s likely that you might not need reservations. The vibes at the restaurant were sophisticated, sexy and modern. While still having an asian styling/flare that was in line with other restaurants in Chinatown.

We ordered the following items. For drinks we ordered xuanzong’s infatuation ($14) Hong Kong YingYong ($14). For appetizers we ordered Shrimp Toast ($14) and Five Venom Taro Fries $10. And for the entree we ordered their Brunch Board ($88). Let’s dig into this review.

Drinks

Xuanzong’s Infatuation & Hong Kong Ying Yong

*Pictured above are xuanzong’s infatuation and Hong Kong YingYong (Not pictured above) ($14/each), photo courtesy of the Brunch Besties.*

All of the drinks are fashioned after the four elements: earth, wind, fire, and water. Although a banal idea, it added a whimsy to the dining experience. We decided to go with Xuanzong’s Infatuation, fire, and the Hong Kong Ying Yong, earth. Xuanzong’s Infatuation is described as a mint strawberry infused vodka, lychee, lemon, soda, and rose water. Garnished with dehydrated lemon and mint spring. Our First impression of this drink was that the presentation was gorgeous and the first sip was just as good as it tasted. It was light and refreshing without being overly sweet. It’s the house rendition of a mojito, but the mint did not overwhelm the other elements in the drink. Overall, this was the perfect summer drink and we rated it a 4.35 out of 5.

Next onto the Hong Kong Ying Yong. It is the house take on a spiked ice coffee, which contains rum, cold brew coffee, and milk tea. This boozy coffee was a perfect morning pick me up as it was mildly sweet without being overly sweet and refreshing without being too strong. It was a well balanced drink, and for that we rated it a 4.0 out of 5.

Appetizers

Shrimp Toast

When we first ordered this item, we genuinely did not know what to expect. The menu describes it as being a house made montao, shrimp patty with a side of ming mayo. The toast came out as little egg- pastry puffs that had bits of minced shrimp cooked inside. The shrimp was cooked perfectly and had a slightly sweet note, and it was accompanied with a sesame oil mayo and lemon wedges that you could sprinkle the juice over top of.

Which we did. It added an additional layer complexity in addition to the mayo. It made the flavor of the shrimp and egg puffs tangy while nicely balancing the creaminess that came from the mayo. We really enjoyed these and our only complaint is that there were not more of these which is why we rated them a 4.98 out of 5.

Fire Venom Taro Fries

This menu item caught our eye, due to the unique ingredient that it contained. These taro fries came with a side of house made “fire venom spice ketchup” with “Ming Mayo.” It will set you back roughly ten dollars, but this was another one of our personal favorites. One thing of note is that the texture is a bit different, as taro doesn’t have the same kind of bite as other kinds of starchy potatoes. But once you adjust to the texture, these fries are a perfect mix of salty, nutty, crispy, and crunchy. And accompanied along with the house condiments, sets it out of orbit.

The only complaint we have, is that contrary to the name, these fries nor any of the condiments were spicy. But honestly, that worked for us and doesn’t change our feelings about these fries. All in all we rated this dish a 4.85 out of 5.

Brunch Board

This is one of the most anticipated items on the menu. After all, it is something that Far East Descendant is known for. It’s boards. If you have seen any social media promotion of the restaurant, it is the most prominent menu item advertised. Whether you come for dinner, happy hour, or brunch. There is a perfect board for you and your group. During our reviews of restaurants we try to get a taste of the restaurant and get multiple dishes. Getting a dish that contained sample sizes of all the items on the brunch menu seemed like the best way for us to get a taste of everything. This board in contained 2 Egg, Cheese, cha siu pork belly montao, 2 custard buns, 4 firecracker shrimp, 1 cha siu beef, 4 pork soup dumplings, 2 crystal shrimp dumplings, 2 shumai, 1 sticky rice, chili cucumber and bok choy. With a line up of items like that, What could go wrong?

A lot apparently. Starting with the worst and working our way up to the better items of the board we’re gonna start with the crystal shrimp. These were raw. The dough had a robust flour flavor and chalky texture. Honestly, this could be our first zero that we’ve given out in the history of this blog, because that’s how bad it was.

Moving on to a slightly better option, The pork soup dumplings. These were also undercooked, but not entirely raw. The flavor was there, but soup broth was lukewarm if warm at all. So this got a 1.5 out of 5.

Next is the Egg cheese cha siu pork belly montao. The bun was dry, and it could have used a bit more pork. The flavor was present, having a slightly sweet but also savory flavor to it. The buns of the montao were fluffy, light, and chewy. So we rated this dish a 2.79 out of 5.

The custard buns are up to bat next. The filling on the inside was similar to butterscotch. The texture was smooth and creamy. The bun was light, but not really fluffy, and actually felt kind of hard. It’s likely that this like the previous items off of this board was not fully cooked. But in spite of that, the flavors were still really good. Thus why we rated this dish a 3.02 out of 5.

The shumai was just off. Normally shumai has a light doughy kind of texture and is bursting with flavor and the juices of whatever filling is on the inside. This was not that. It was undercooked, the shrimp had a slight off putting flavor and smell, and this combo definitely upset our stomachs. But in spite of this the flavors were still really good. And although not completely raw, it was still somewhat edible. Thus why we rated this a 3.2 out of 5.

The firecracker shrimp was next. And the good thing about this was that the shrimp actually wasn’t raw and was perfectly cooked (shocking right?) The roll that the shrimp came in was not greasy, and the flavors of the shrimp was pretty good. However the downside if you could call it that, is that it didn’t meet what we were expecting. It was more a shrimp spring roll minus the veggies that come in a spring roll. And normally when you think of firecracker shrimp you think of fried shrimp battered in some kind of firecracker sauce. Which this was not. For that, we rated this dish a 3.3 out of 5.

The next couple items were the cha sui beef and the sticky rice. The beef was slightly sweet, but was still somewhat crunchy. It was well seasoned, which was appreciated, and not raw. (Thank god.) But it was good. Not great. The rice was very chewy. There was a subtle shrimp flavor, but somehow in spite of its name it managed to still taste a bit undercooked. For these reasons we rated the beef a 3.5 out of 5 and the rice a 3.1 out of 5.

In Conclusion..

This has to have been a record for a restaurant’s food quality going completely belly up. We started extremely strong, and because of that strong start, we were under the impression that everything else on the menu would be delicious. We thought that this was going to be an easy place to review initially, and it is, but not for the reasons that we initially thought.

The thing that is most disappointing is that there was so much potential for this to be an amazing brunch experience. The restaurant has beautiful interior design. The concepts behind the menu items are creative and fun. And the drinks and location, make for the beginning of a good time. But maybe opening a restaurant with little to no restaurant experience is not a good idea. Especially if you can’t do basic quality control to make sure that the food isn’t raw.

So that’s our review of Far East Descendant. What do you guys think? Would you go here to eat brunch? Let us know down below in the comments.

Until next time,

XOXO

The Brunch Besties