David's Mai Lai Wah: Doing It Right Late at Night

I love good Chinese food. Most of all, I love good Chinese food at ungodly hours of the night. David’s Mai Lai Wah does late night Chinese food right, serving their full dinner menu until 4am on Friday and Saturday nights—or at normal dinner hours, if you prefer. My friend Lil’ Fishy and I went there last weekend.

We kicked off the meal with the house steamed dumplings ($5). Admittedly, these aren’t the most aesthetically pleasing dumplings in town but damn are they delicious. The pork filling was moist and sweet. On my previous visit I had the vegetarian steamed dumplings, which were also quite good, filled with finely grated carrot, cabbage and mushroom. Both of the steamed dumplings were served with an aromatic sauce of minced ginger and scallion. Forget the bland dumpling sauces of other China Town haunts, this sauce is simple but piquant.

On my previous visit I also tried the hot and sour soup ($5). I have a hard time not ordering hot and sour soup when I go out for Chinese food, despite the fact that I’m disappointed nine times out of ten. I mean, if it’s called hot and sour soup, shouldn’t it be, well, sour? Sweet and sour is always just sweet—and boring to boot—and hot and sour is always just hot, and only then if you’re lucky. David’s version doesn’t quite satisfy my fantasy hot and hour soup, but it’s the closest I’ve found so far ‘round these parts. They take it easy on the agar so it’s not too thick, chock it full of grated bamboo shoots, lily buds and black fungus, along with delicate, lacy bits of egg. It’s spicy and, yes, just a little bit sour.

Lil’ Fishy and I shared the Salt and Pepper Squid ($10) Also known as “salt baked”, salt and pepper seafood dishes do right by the ying and yang of spice. Whenever I visit Omega-3 Mama in Portland, OR we go to our new favorite Chinese restaurant, Jin Wah, for the salt and pepper shrimp. (Omega-3 Mama doesn’t like squid but we all have our flaws, don’t we?) Jin’s salt and pepper dishes are thinly coated in a salt and pepper-laden batter, served with a dry sauce of stir-fried onions, scallions and paper-thin slices jalapeño. It’s come to be my gold standard in the salt n’ pepper market. David’s Salt and Pepper Squid is the best version I’ve been able to locate in Philly. The squid is thinly coated in batter and flash fried, with a good amount of pepper and salt. It’s tasty enough, in fact, that I forgive them for omitting the stir-fried accompaniments and garnishing it with orange slices and maraschino cherry.

My friend and I also shared the Muu Shu Vegetable ($7). I love anything that’s hard to eat and with Muu Shu you often end up with sauce dripping down to your elbows. David’s is a good if predictable version and is an excellent choice for vegetarians since it’s got plenty of stir-fried egg, for protein, mixed in with the shredded vegetables.

Fresh orange slices accompany the requisite fortune cookies—and ward off scurvy too.



David’s Mai Lai Wah
1001 Race Street
Monday-Thursday til 2am
Friday-Saturday til 4am
Sunday til 1am