Good choices: Crispy fried spicy shrimp with head and shell; crispy fried calamari with spicy salted peppers; crispy fried squab; steamed jumbo oysters with black bean sauce; Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce; stir-fried string beans with minced garlic; eggplant with hot garlic sauce.
Credit cards: MasterCard, Visa, American Express.
Access: Handicap ramp at side door.
JUMBO SEAFOOD RESTAURANT
5-7-9 Hudson St., Boston
(617) 542-2823
Restaurant reviewed 12/17/97 by Sheryl Julian
I look to the left and to the right, and at both tables, they're working their way through a heap of tiny fried shrimp, stacked so invitingly on a platter that it is all I can do to keep from extending my own chopsticks westward or eastward. One is a tableful of young Chinese, the other an older Chinese couple. Naturally, I order the shrimp.
First thing, the waiter goes over to the fish tank, steps up on a little ladder, grabs a net, and goes fishing. No wonder everyone's ordering them: They go right from the water to deep fat. I already know I love Jumbo and I haven't even put chopstick to mouth.
Then come the crispy fried spicy shrimp with heads and tails ($10) arrive and four adults fall silent. Jumbo says crispy and they're serious. Same for spicy and same for salt. These intense little morsels are right at my salt threshold, which is high. (Everything at Jumbo is plenty salty). Still, I can't stop eating them, crunching tails and heads and then shamelessly eating heads off everyone else's plate.
I throw my blazer over the back of the chair. I don't want to be encumbered by anything. Jumbo's house special seafood soup ($12 for a medium tureen, ample for four) is welcomingly mild after the shrimp. A pale fish broth, thickened with a drizzle of egg whites, contains squid, scallops, shrimp, and a few scallions. Where the shrimp made my tongue dance, the soup placates.
Both are Hong Kong-style, explained Cathy Leung, who, with her husband, Ken, opened Jumbo a year ago, ``named for a famous restaurant with live seafood in Hong Kong.'' Hong Kong residents now living in Boston, drawn to the name, found Jumbo quickly. Most of these customers from Hong Kong, she says, will only go to restaurants with fish tanks, because they have to see what they're eating.
All of Jumbo's seafood is startlingly good. Steamed jumbo oysters with shell and black bean sauce ($8.95) come a half-dozen to the platter. These giant Vancouver oysters, in a pool of their own liquor,OYSTER LIQUID IS CALLED ``OYSTER LIQUOR`` are dotted with Chinese black beans, oyster salinity and bean saltiness in unison.
There is skill and polish and sophistication in this kitchen. And, like all good things, it's no accident. The Leungs (no relation to other restaurant-owning Leungs) had a share in New Shanghai restaurant, which they sold last year. Cathy Leung, originally from Hong Kong, went to Boston University and worked for an investment firm here for 10 years. She and her husband own the building in Chinatown where Jumbo is located, not far from the lion gate. They knew that when China took over Hong Kong, many people would be leaving. So they decided to open a place that would appeal to them. ``We try to keep Hong Kong standards,'' she said.
Whole fish, scooped out of the tank, are market priced and average about $10 per pound. A striped bass (1 pounds costs $15) arrives curved slightly, cooked on its edge, fin up, so the presentation, with its dark Hunan sauce, is dramatic. The customers to the right and left are also eating a whole fish, setting the bones down right on the table.
A whole squab ($10) is crisp and cut up, then reassembled, with the tiny head, beak out, leading the squab on the plate. The hot pot of chicken with vermicelli and satay sauce ($8) is so much less bold than the other food, its rice noodles resembling caramelized onions by the time they have sat in the hot broth for a few minutes, that we're disappointed by this dish.
At the end of the meal, there remain a few bright stir-fried green beans ($6.95) and a stalk or two of crisp Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce ($6.95). I take these for the last of my bowl of rice, along with a few crusty bits of crispy fried calamari with spicy salted peppers ($8). I wash it down with the last of the Chinese beer and, buoyantly, sprint home.
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