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2014-03-16
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Man MoThe summer roll was pretty straightforward: shrimp and salad in a vinaigrette dressing. I liked the light touch on the salad and I would have liked this dish overall except I found the wrapper itself to be unmanageably chewy. OK, CI've wondered about fusion dumplings in the past. What would they be like? These were like ravioli. Tomato, basil, mozzerella ravioli. But good ravioli. I enjoyed them, though I probably would have liked regular dumplings better. Good, B+Soup dumplings are pretty
The summer roll was pretty straightforward: shrimp and salad in a vinaigrette dressing. I liked the light touch on the salad and I would have liked this dish overall except I found the wrapper itself to be unmanageably chewy. OK, C
I've wondered about fusion dumplings in the past. What would they be like? These were like ravioli. Tomato, basil, mozzerella ravioli. But good ravioli. I enjoyed them, though I probably would have liked regular dumplings better. Good, B+
Soup dumplings are pretty fatty normally-- they have to be like that to make. These ones were exceptionally fatty and as a consequence exceptionally delicious. I like that they are small-- or, I should say, that's what my doctor likes. Recommended. A
Very tender, juicy beef cheek in a bun. With some extra juice just for fun. I thought that while this was good, it was rather mellow, without a very strong flavor. Good B
The "risotto" here is really fried rice. At least, it's not mushy and cheesy in the way risotto I'm used to is. Considered as fried rice it was very good: fluffy and eggy and not greasy. I think the duck worked really well and added a strong flavor to the dish. I really wanted some chili sauce to go with this though. Great, A-
When I mentioned French fusion dim sum to a friend of mine, he said "so, you mean mayonnaise on everything?" Surprisingly no. The shrimp spring roll was the only thing that came with mayonnaise, and I believe the mayo was the only thing that qualified it as fusion. Pretty much just a spring roll. B-
We didn't originally order the scallop xiao long bao, but we decided to after having the foie gras one. This was pretty good to: it had a strong scallop-flavored broth (in a good way), and was quite buttery. I'm split on which one I think is better. Recommended. AOn the whole I liked Man Mo Cafe. It avoided the fusion trap of mixing too many things together and aimed for, and succeeded with, simple, elegant combinations of ingredients. This means that it wasn't too different from high end dim sum, but it afforded an array of novelty that is definitely worth trying. Very good, B+
Note on service: We sat at the bar (there weren't any tables for us on a Monday), and the service was great. Fast and friendly and unobtrusive.
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