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2010-03-14
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Friend from out of town visiting and wanted to try a local dim sum place. As he's already been to the quintessentially gweilo-designated City Hall Maxim's, I decided to bring him to this restaurant in Soho. Soho? He asked. Isn't that where all the rip-off places targeted at unsuspecting westerners are? Ah, I said wisely, wait till you try it.This place does dim sum in the afternoon, with very reasonably priced rice dishes with various toppings, such as spare ribs, fish fillet in sweetcorn sauce,
This place does dim sum in the afternoon, with very reasonably priced rice dishes with various toppings, such as spare ribs, fish fillet in sweetcorn sauce, steamed carp fish etc. which is a big hit with the workers in the neighbourhood who requires a quick meal of substantial portions at an affordable price. At night it transforms into a family style restaurant serving authentic Chinese dishes. And of course the winter warmer snake dishes are wildly displayed on posters all around at this time of the year.
The place isn't big, maybe 5 or 6 small tables and a big round one inside, a few foldable tables on the slope outside, and everyone cramming in and sharing tables. Then we did the first thing all local people do best: queue. After 15 minutes we managed to get half a table. The other 4 people on the other half of our table were a little surprised to see 2 tall Westerners and a little Chinese girl amidst this crowd.
Tick away at the green and pink dim sum sheets, which includes all the staples, which gives you about 40 varieties to choose from. The must try "ma lai go" was a rich sugary brown colour, spongey and fluffy in texture, rich in taste, with a few slices of toasted almonds. It was heavenly. The "har gao" shrimp dumplings had fresh, decent sized prawns, and not the mushy, fat-laden gunk you might get in other places. The skin wrapping the dumplings were just chewy enough but not sticky, mildly opaque but still translucent enough for you to see the blushing pink from the shrimps shine through. The char siu bao was a hefty pipping hot bun with a good amount of barbequed pork inside, and the sauce wasn't too sweet or too gooey, which was something I very much appreciated. All the other dim sums were well executed, no frills, spot on and very satisfying. We also ordered a stir fried broccoli with oyster sauce, which came in a large plate of chunky green broccoli with a light oyster sauce drizzled on top. The last thing we had was the stir-fried glutinuous rice "sang chau lor mai fan" (For those who would like to order the dish and speak no Cantonese, I hope this helps). It was one massive plate of glutinous rice flavoured with soy sauce, generously flavoured with diced Chinese dried sausages, liver sausages, dried game meat, some egg and lots of chives and parsley. There was enough for 6 people to share, and naturally after all those dim sum, we couldn't finish it despite our best efforts. A doggy-pack took care of the remaining.
The service could be described as quick, snappy, efficient, probably because we were first time customers, but you could see that this place is a jovial and welcoming restaurant where families of grandmas with grandkids in tow come for a meal, where regulars come for their usual orders, and occassionaly you might see a couple of Westerners venturing out of their comfort zone.
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