Lei Garden at Chijmes

A Chinese food connoisseur I am not. But do I actually enjoy fantastic Chinese food that is both expensive and ridiculously good? Yes!

I have had the opportunity to eat at Lei Garden this past week at Chijmes. I made a reservation the day before for a business lunch and 2 hours before my reservation, the restaurant called me and reconfirmed the booking and asked me if I wanted to pre-order some dishes like the roast park and their special double boiled soup. Since I was not paying for lunch. I said yes!

But much to my short sightedness, one of the guests was vegetarian. Fortunately, the servers were very sensitive. They saw that one of my guests was vegetarian and made some vegetarian dishes to replace the meat dishes without me asking. How cool was that?

We ordered doubled boiled pork rib soup, mixed summer vegetables, roasted pork, Peking duck, fried noodles with duck and specially sliced fried beef. The lunch was about $600 for 8 people. Sure. That's a lot of money but I haven't had such a good Chinese lunch in a long time.

Now, please understand that some of you might be thinking that this food-critic equates price with quality. I would politely have to disagree with you. A $600 lunch is a lot! Its really a lot! But it was really good.

Invite your potential future in laws to this place if you are going to announce your engagement.