At 11am, they were able to immediately seat our party of 5. At least a third of the crowd, maybe up to 1/2, was definitely not Chinese.
Overall, this was an excellent dim sum experience, better than any in recent memory. My only complaint would be that many of the dumplings were so large and unwieldy that the filling and wrapper needed to be eaten separately. Those still tasted good though. None of the wrappers seemed oversteamed to the point of sogginess, but some were a bit soft.
"Shrimp dumpling" ( "jingying xian xiajiao" AKA ha gow ): excellent, lots of whole shrimp chunks, but perhaps too big"Pork siu mai" : Shrimp dominate this dish to the point that I forgot they were labeled as pork sui mai. Juicy, coarsely chopped ingredients, and large. "Baked pork buns" : Maybe I'm not getting out enough, but I don't think I've ever had baked bun dough quite like this. The bottom was brown and a bit oily and the top was white with no glaze. In a good way, the exterior was dry and a little brittle, but there was no additional thick coating like in a pineapple bun. Maybe it had been dusted with rice flour. In any case, the whole thing was delicious. Good meat filling and the inner lining soaked up the juices and had a chewiness instead of gumminess. A+"BBQ pork puffed" : I tend to dislike pastry dough dim sum, but this one was pretty good. The dough had enough hydration and wasn't oily but was still flaky."Sticky rice in lotus leaf" : generally good flavor and prepared such that it didn't come out a pasty mess. One piece of shrimp had an off flavor."Chui Zhou dumpling" : the star of the show, and typically one of my least favorite dim sum items because of peanut domination. Their filling was crunchy and really nicely balanced with daikon. These are giant and the translucent dough was unwieldy enough that I snacked on the bulk of filling before attempting to eat any part of the wrapper. Still, delicious. "Broccoli with oyster sauce": well prepared"Chinese donut noodle roll" ( zhaliang ) : terrible. Doughnut had an unpleasant toughness, but I've not found a good one at any other Cantonese places."Pork liver noodle roll" : good texture, didn't excite me. Probably needed soy sauce in retrospect.
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