Jumbo Seafood 珍寶軒 — Restaurant in Boston

Peach Farm gets a lot of strong reviews and good press but I think Jumbo Seafood is a strong contender for some of the best cantonese & seafood in Chinatown.

It can be quite crowded but the restaurant, the tableware, etc do not seem as worn down as at other places in Chinatown. The service is typically Cantonese, by which I mean a bit terse and impatient, but that's to be expected even if you speak Chinese.

The 干炒牛河 [N7 Wok Tossed Beef Chow Foon] here is well done. Good wok hei, fair amount of beef, seasoning on point. Noodles are chewy and fresh. No complaints.

The 黄金白饭鱼 [C14 White Fish w. Salted Egg Yolk] is a dish with these small, narrow fish that are slender but meaty, battered in a salted egg yolk mix. It comes out a little oily but the egg yolk coating is well done here - you can still taste the egg yolk because it's not overfried. The fish inside are still tender.

The 炸鸡 [K2 Coconut Deep Fry Crispy Chicken] was well executed. Ignore the "coconut deep fry" part. It's just a well fried chicken with a coconut sauce on the side (which is pretty bad and best ignored). Chinese fried chicken is not battered at all, it's straight skin to oil. Either way, nicely crisp skin and the meat is still juicy and flavorful.

The 椒盐炸田鸡 [Gourmet Features - Spicy Frog, but we ordered it 椒盐 which is the salt & pepper style] was really great! Definitely one of the best frog dishes I've had in recent memory. The coating was crisp and not thick at all. The frog meat was tender, juicy, and tasted fresh. And you can't go wrong with salt & pepper seasoning with fried meat. I definitely recommend ordering this.

The XO酱海中宝 [C28 Seafood in XO sauce] isn't terrible: the seafood is pretty fresh and not overcooked in a light gravy. It comes in a giant nest of sort made of mashed taro root that's then been fried into a shape resembling a baseball glove. However, there's way more taro than you'd really want to eat and I think you can probably get a better value with more straightforward seafood dishes.

Finally, the 菜苗 [V1 Pea Pod Stem with Garlic] is a classic cantonese vegetable dish and it was a fine rendition here. Greens were tender, well seasoned, not overcooked, and fresh. No complaints.

Overall, I think New Jumbo is a fine Cantonese restaurant in Boston's Chinatown. Is it the best? Maybe yes, maybe no. The dishes we ordered were all pretty much spot on for execution and we had few complaints. Would...

I ordered a few items common in dimsum, but they did not have it. Can't hold it against them since we came in near the end of lunch hour. What I do hold against them was when my wife ordered a salted egg yolk bun which have three of them in a dish. What she got was one salted egg yolk bun and two lotus seed bun without informing us. Bait and switch, hoping we would not care. My wife also ordered a Paradise Jumbo Shrimp. Evidently, because it was near the end of lunch hour, they rushed this dish as they didn't properly drain the unflavored broccoli and so the water mixed in with the cream making the cream less creamy and watery. I ordered what was supposed to be spicy chili and cumin beef dish. Since anything that was 'spicy' was given little chili pepper next to the item on the menu, I requested that they make it extra spicy. What I got was a pepper and onion beef dish that was not spicy at all. What happened to my 'make it extra spicy'? They gave me a small ramekin 1/3 filled with hot chili oil on the side... I dumped the whole thing into my dish. I mixed it around and still did not get any real kick. So I order another side of hot chili oil and dumped the whole thing into my dish. Finally got enough kick out of it to not be sicken by the meal. I had to eat/drink my food to get enough spicy kick to be all right. I gave never ever had to do something like that in my life. Now I know I can handle spice, but I also know I am not that much of a chili head. For me to have to treat my dish like soup and drink their chili oil speaks more on how unspicy the chili oil was. And how bad this dish was. I may change my mind again in the future as I will give this restaurant one more chance. But first impression was not remotely good nor can I right now...

The owner, Ken, of Jumbo Seafood Boston is a complete donkey. I say current because I've been coming here for about 10 years. Back then there was a different owner. Back then my orders were correct. Back then customer service mattered and because of how the previous owner and staff made me feel I brought my friends and girlfriend to eat in and also take out. I talk to a ton of people every week because of my job and would always talk up this restaurant when I planned to get Chinese food. I alone easily racked up thousands of dollars in business over the years. Then Covid hit...

The previous owner sold and Ken took over. Since then, orders are incorrect, the staff's attitudes are a disgrace, and Ken has no idea how to run a business.

Tonight was the last straw when his cashier called me a liar when I explained I should receive a large container of sauce for $5, not a small. FYI: Ken was the one who charged me $5 a couple of weeks prior for a large. I have the receipt to prove it. I told Ken what his staff said and he looks as me and says what would you like me to do about it. That was it for me.

As noted in numerous previous comments, the staff are rude and there are a ton of other restaurants on every block and corner. I look forward to building a new relationship and bringing my friends and girlfriend to a place that has great food and understands both customer service and the value of a customer. Reputation is everything these days. Unfortunately, this restaurant's reputation has gone down the toilet like the...