Xiao Du Hui

Found a lady bug in their take out soup noodle, will never order from this place ever again

The best of FuZhou food! Their fish balls are delicious! I always come back for it and to my surprise lots of my friends come here just for their fish balls also. What I love most is their small dishes in the morning which only cost $ 1 each! Amazing!

Within a mile radius (or two) of 7 train’s last stop in Flushing, in this sea of restaurants and eateries— I don’t know why anyone would come to Xiao Du Hui to dine, if they knew any better. I would only recommend this place to you if I truly dislike you and counting on never seeing you again.
We had the following:
–Complimentary small dish starters
They were brine chicken cuts and preserved/​marinated vegetables roots. While the vegetable roots were fine and standard… Pardon my ignorance of Fuzhou cuisine, but what is that chicken? Briney and sour tough meat… Oookk.
— Fuzhou wonton soup
It was ok. Not memorable but no complains.
— Ke jia tofu
It was fine. The tofu were pre-​fried. I’m not sure if this is standard of the region but I know this makes cooking and preservation of the tofu pieces easier. I can do either way.
— Scallion and ginger duck tongue
So we had a little trouble with the language when ordering it. But it was resolved in Mandarin and agreed that we’ll have the scallion and ginger version of the duck tongue. Well, the chef decided to substitute the scallions with onions. Without telling us. You could easily tell that the tongue was pre-​prepared because it has a red tint (similar to your average Chinese roast pork strips). Surely, pre-​boiling or pre-​cooking the duck tongue is a normal cooking preparation, specially when sauteing. The flavor was alright, but not enough for me to ever want to order this again.
— Razor/​knife clams with chives
I was a bit surprised that they un-​shelled the clams and sauteed this with vegetables/​aromatics. This means more handy work for the kitchen prep; clearly, someone was not happy being assigned to the task because she/​he did a shoddy job. The strips of meat were not properly cleaned.
— Goose intestine with chives
Again, the chef decided to sauté this with Chinese celery. Where is the chive? Fine. Chinese celery pairs well but heck, talking about using fillers… there was more vegetable than intestines.
— Black bean sauce snails
Flavorful, this seemed to be the only dish that everyone agree was a stand out. But even then, this was just average. Also, again, the kitchen prep did a shoddy work of cleaning the snails.
— Sauteed Chinese watercress
This is a basic dish that I expect every chef that works at a restaurant know how to handle and cook well. Why? Because this is a basic homey dish. It shouldn’t fail in a commercial setting. The Kong Xin Cai turned quite yellow means they were cooked too long (Aw, stupid chlorophyll!), and there were too much water/​stock with the dish. Poorly executed.
— Sauteed loofah
A young, fresh loofah (or commonly referred Chinese okra) should be faintly sweet. The loofah that the kitchen brought out was a bit bitter. Bitterness is usually a sign that the loofah fruit has matured more than desired. While still perfectly eatable, this is again unpleasant to the diner.
While the food is below average, so was the service. I can deal with a crappy interior, and the not so wonderful smell that permeates the restaurant. But once you add in subpar service (even by average Chinese restaurant standards) and food into the mix… not good.
We had hard time flagging down for the waitstaff when we needed something. The host/​cashier guy saw us requiring service several times, he ignored us. So did other waitstaff. They also screw it up when it comes to the check, giving us different prices from the menu… Wait, it didn’t occur to you to mention that your menu’s prices are outdated?
Maybe they just didn’t care for our business after all.

Xiao Du Hui is wedged in with countless other restaurants on 40^th Road, one of the dingier offshoots of Flushing’s Main Street. Likewise, the interior is dreary but otherwise unremarkable. A bunch of Unilocalers made our way here on an almost-​quadruple date to try and learn more about Fuzhou cuisine.
— Fuzhou-​style wontons (扁肉) — The only dish I knew to be a Fuzhou speciality, so I considered this a must-​order. Unfortunately, these thin-​skinned wontons were just okay. They lacked flavor and that comforting, delicate quality of good Fuzhou wontons.
— Sauteed loofah — So bitter! We didn’t order bittermelon. So why was this so bitter? It was completely inedible.
— Ke jia tofu — My thought process: «Ke jia means ‘native,’ so surely this has some unique flavor!» I forgot that it means «native» specifically in Taiwan (as in the Hakka people). I’m still not sure what Hakka tofu SHOULD taste like, but the silken tofu here was fried and hadn’t yet become soggy from the thick sauce. Not the most inventive thing, but it was my favorite dish of the bunch.
— Snails in black bean sauce — Basic but flavorful (not difficult to achieve with black bean sauce). The snails lifted out of their shells easily with a little suction. These tasted even better out of the fridge the next day.
— Knife (razor) clams with chives — Decent flavor, the clams seemed fresh enough. Nothing noteworthy though.
— Duck tongue — We asked for this sauteed in scallion and ginger, but there was very little of either and lots of onion instead. The tongue is red-​braised separately so it had good flavor (oof, meta). The texture was odd — much softer than expected — and eating something that’s recognizably an animal’s entire tongue is a little weird (like making out with a duck corpse? Sorry).
— Goose intestine sauteed with Chinese celery — No flavor. How do you make goose intestine boring?
— Sauteed watercress — Overcooked, too greasy, too little garlic. I still ate it because watercress.
Some dishes were decent, but too many were worse than they should’ve been. The crappiest part was when the bill came: apparently there are two versions of the menu with different prices, and the prices on our bill were higher still. When the staff saw us checking the bill against the menu, they walked by and commented, «Oh, those are the old prices.»
Screw that shit. We cut their tip by the amount they overcharged and ended up spending about $ 16 per person, which is not cheap for: a) 7 people who are b) sharing family-​style at a c) Chinese restaurant and who d) didn’t order any alcohol and who e) didn’t finish some of the food because it wasn’t appealing enough and who f) then went elsewhere to eat more.
Beyond the sneaky billing, they should’ve refilled our tea way more and waitstaff been more available when we tried flagging them down. As one of us put it afterward when leaving the restaurant: «There was just nothing redeeming about it.» I still don’t have a good feel for Fuzhou cuisine and can’t find a single reason I’d recommend Xiao Du Hui.

Claims of tasting like home cooking lured and intrigued me so I came here with a group of 7 (mostly Unilocalers) to try authentic Fuzhou style cuisine. The place is a dump which never really bothers me especially if the food is good but that sadly wasn’t the case here. We ordered:
Foo Chow Wonton Soup: middle of the road and simply forgettable. 2.5÷5
Goose Intestines with chives: came out with chinese celery instead of chives. The substitution was confusing seeing as how they did have chives in stock as they cooked the razor clams with chives. ³⁄₅
Knife Clams (razor clams??) with chives: this would’ve been a decent dish if only the clams had been properly cleaned. There were plenty of digestive tract left clinging to the clams. ²⁄₅
Snails with black bean sauce: these were not cleaned properly either and there was plenty of sand to be enjoyed if that’s your thing. Toothpicks did not come with this dish so we had to hunt down a server for some. Perhaps there are peeps out there with awesome snail sucking power who do not require the aid of a toothpick but sadly me and my fellow eating companions do not fall in that category. ²⁄₅
Tofu with Brown sauce: the best dish of the night but I could’ve gone to my neighborhood chinese takeout joint for the same thing. ³⁄₅
Water Spinach w/​garlic: Kong Xin Cai is one of my favorite vegetables and its really hard to get this wrong. They did. Maybe it was the abundance of oil, or the lack of garlic and salt or the overcooking of the spinach or all of the above. 1.5÷5
Sauteed Loofah: bitter! Say what? Loofah shouldn’t have a bitter after taste… unless they’ve gone bad. Needless to say this dish mostly went untouched. ¹⁄₅
Duck tongue with ginger and scallion: I tried duck tongue for the first time here and it was surprisingly good. It reminded me of chicken gizzards both texturally and taste wise. If they can do a decent job here I’m sure there is better duck tongue to be found elsewhere. 3.5÷5
I’m pretty used to bad service at chinese restos but theirs was poor even by those standards. They failed to explain the dishes properly even though half the peeps at our table spoke Mandarin and it was generally hard to get a hold of a server throughout the meal. My personal favorite was the female server who took a call on her cell and when I waved at her, she ignored me and simply walked out of the restaurant to continue her conversation.
I was still planning on giving them 2 stars (which would’ve been pretty generous considering the improper cleaning of ingredients and the past it’s prime loofah) but then came the debacle with the check. The prices listed on our bill were higher than what was listed on the menu. When asked about it, the man at the front desk (perhaps the owner) said the menu prices were incorrect and the correct pricing was listed on the receipt. For shits & giggles we grabbed a more recent menu (their takeout menu) to compare pricing and what do you know, pricing on the take out menu vs. the dine in menu vs. the receipt were all different. This place is extremely shady and should be avoided at all costs if you don’t appreciate being swindled.
Final Thought:
I’m confused why my experience differs so greatly from the rave reviews of other Unilocalers. Either the previous Unilocalers are all incredibly and unreasonably generous in their ratings; the chef was having an off night; this resto has changed owners/​chefs since the the most recent review was posted, 1.5 years ago; or fuzhou style cuisine, put very politely, isn’t to my liking… or all of the above. Curiouser and curiouser…

Great and authentic Fuzhou style Chinese food that reminds me the taste of home back in Fuzhou [x
I don’t think I would ever walk in this place if my cousin had not promised me of their delicious dishes. It does look shady both inside and out. However, it was a pretty pleasant experience.
The service was very nice comparing to other Chinese restaurants around. Foods were quickly brought out and everything tasted delicious and fresh. The seafoods used are purchased from the markets daily. Since we went pretty late at night, they ran out of fresh seafoods. Will come earlier next time to try!
Overall, this is a place I’ll definitely come back for! Reasonably priced foods that remind me of home C:

Amazing food also really cheap

open at 2am, this place hits the spot on a cold windy day. Try the beef with hot chilies or the duck w/​rice noodles soup. The beef dish had a decent amount of heat and the noodle soup was well-​flavored. Ya gotta know a little chinese to order but the menu is in English too.

This place looks a bit shady from the outside and looks just as shady on the inside. On the left, there are booths and on the right there are bigger tables for parties of 6+. One table in the back had the pleasure of us stuffing close to 12 people there, so it can definitely accomodate a good sized party.
Their specialty is Fuzhou style Chinese food and they have the best seafood at extremely reasonable prices. We usually order the lobster, crab, snail, clams, among other things. There isn’t one thing that we don’t like from their menu. Normally, we order a la carte, and per person costs never come out to more than $ 25, and this is taking into consideration that 1) there are some beastly girls in our group dinners and 2) we are all extremely full to the brim by the time we’re done. Last week we fed 6 people with 8 dishes that came out to $ 110 with plenty of leftovers.
There is a family lunch/​dinner menu, where you can order a soup and two dishes for $ 12.95, with each additional dish at an additional $ 5.
This is a little known gem in the heart of Flushing.