Seattle Dim Sum

A "Classic"

2006-09-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

I'm moving into a new place this week (close to the ID/Chinatown = more dim sum!!) but I currently have little-no computer access. Expect a review of House of Hong sometime in the next week or so. Until then, this review of Y. Ben House in San Francisco I wrote a year ago after a trip to San Francisco will have to tide you over...

Y. Ben House – San Francisco This was the last of our Chinese food in San Francisco, and it promised to be the best. All of the reviews I’d read online said it was some of the best and most authentic dim sum in San Francisco.

Another thing the reviews said was that the décor was, to say the least, a little less than nice. We walked in to an awkward corridor that didn’t reach the ceiling, exposing the dining room, and made our way through throngs of old Chinese women up to the front of the line. The woman asked how many were in our group, and wrote something in Chinese on a piece of paper and left right away. I wasn’t sure exactly how we were supposed to be seated.

A few minutes later she said something, and we were quickly being ushered into the dining room. The walls were adorned with the usual red and gold engravings, and giant mirrors covered two walls, making the room seem enormous. We were lead to a table that looked far too big for our group of three; it looked like a table for eight or nine. We sat down in front of someone else’s dirty dishes – and someone else. An elderly Chinese woman sat across the round table from us, seemingly unfazed. I figured she must have been from the group who had used the dirty dishes. But after a waiter came and took the dirty dishes away (using one of their napkins to clean the table – a little gross) she was still sitting there. Not soon after, two other women joined her. And then two more people sat down on our other side. It was that awkward enough being the only white, English speaking people in the restaurant, but being seated with a group of non English speaking Chinese ladies made it all that harder.

If I was nervous at all, I forgot about it completely when the dim sum carts started to roll around. Our table quickly filled up with little dumplings, mostly filled with fresh shrimp that was still whole inside the wrappers, rather than a mystery mush. The fried eggplant filled with shrimp was unlike anything I’d had before. It was intensely crispy on the outside, with a smooth, creamy texture inside, and delicious shrimp. The har gow, my favorite dim sum dish, was a little disappointing with a thick, tough wrapper, but that’s only nit picking.

Every few minutes, I would catch a glance of the women sitting adjacent to us watching our techniques closely. Normally, I think my chopstick skills are pretty good, but with added pressure I felt like I was dropping things a little more often than usual. A few times they tired to give us some pointers, but their gestures couldn’t make up for the fact that they were speaking Chinese.

I did manage to pick up a few things from the women; how to eat certain things, and more importantly how to act at dim sum. They ate and drank tea, but they also laughed loudly, shouted, and ate a lot. It was far from the usual reserved American Chinese restaurant experience.

To get a better view of the restaurant, I decided to go to the bathroom, which was in the back, behind the kitchen. The dining room was loud, and all the tables were packed to the gills with people passing around small dishes of fried and steamed treats. The stairs up to the bathroom went right past the room where most of the dumplings were being assembled. I stopped for a minute on the way down the stairs and watched through the crack of visible door as two pairs of hands with an invisible body scooped up meat from a mountainous pile and, with mechanically perfect rhythm, created an endless stream of dumplings.

I dashed back down the stairs when I saw someone coming out of the kitchen, and back into the dining room. When I got back the check was being paid for and the last few dishes being loaded into a takeout container for later use.

We got up and said goodbye to our table mates, who smiled and said something in Chinese, or maybe said goodbye in garbled English. I felt a little bit like a sore thumb walking out of the restaurant, but that didn’t bother me. I’d just had the best dim sum I’d ever had, and despite the cultural, racial and language differences, I felt a little less intimidated than when I had walked in. Unfortunately for most non-Chinese, they never even bother to walk in, settling for the less authentic, but less intimidating places. Now I’ll never be able to go back.

Jade Garden Part Three (Or LA Lounge Part One??)

2006-08-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

A Jew, a Mexican and a Chinese guy walk into a restaurant. Sound like the beginning of a joke? Nope! Just today's dim sum trip, where we were joined by our friend Nick.
Originally, we were going to go to the Purple Dot Cafe, but after I saw a mysterious place called "LA Lounge Karaoke and Bar," I decided we should go there. It looked like a seedy night club, yet there were people eating dim sum inside.

Trouble came though, when we tried to get in. The door was locked! What was this? Some kind of secret dim sum club? We finally gave up, and decided to go to Jade Garden, just around the corner. However, all our questions were answered when we were led to the back of the restaurant, through a door and into... the LA Lounge! Apparently Jade Garden bought out the space, but didn't take the sign down.

This was my third time visiting Jade Garden for this blog, and the food was spectacular as usual. This time, I remembered to bring the camera. I also have figured out how it works better, so the pictures aren't all fuzzy like the last few (it's a new camera).

Shrimp and vegetable dumplings. Standard, but delicious!

I enjoy cha siu bao! Oh so fluffy...

I mentioned this in a previous Jade Garden post, but I just want to reiterate my love for this item: shrimp dumplings with a big chunk of lobster on top. Perfect wrappers stuffed with rich, delicious seafood. I could eat these all day.

Xiao long bao, aka soup dumplings. This is the first time I've ever seen these in Seattle, and the first time I've eaten them. They are made by pudding gelatinized stock in the filling, which melts after it cooks. The result is a soupy burst when you bite into it. These also had huge amounts of ginger, which I liked.

The requisite chicken feet. Better than my last visit, more soy flavor with that great star anise flavor prevailing.

Siu mai. A classic done very well. Mixture of shrimp and pork, which made them lighter.

Brian and Nick. You can't tell, but Brian's tattoo is of a Chinese style boat with the Hong Kong skyline in the background. Pretty cool. I think he should've gotten some har gow in there...

Close up of the cha siu bao. So airy and light! Mmmmmm

The place where we DIDN'T eat

Something else we didn't eat. This big guy has been in the tank there for a while..

Cheung fan

Cheun fan with Chinese donuts. Nice contrasting textures, but the flavor was so-so. Kinda greasy. I'd get it again though.

New Kowloon

2006-08-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today we visited New Kowloon, a big banquet type place with seating for 280, located on the outer edge of Chinatown/ID, just east of I-5 in the Pacific Rim center. I've always driven past that place, and seen the sign, but never ventured inside. Though buried in a quiet shopping center, and surrounded by empty stores and a few beauty salons, New Kowloon was alive and kicking this morning.

A nicely decorated space with lots of gold/red, some cool paintings and statues and a giant picture of the Hong Kong skyline. I'd say it's actually one of the nicest looking Chinese restaurants I've been to in Seattle, along the lines of the more popular House of Hong.

The crowd was a mix of non-Asian office workers (a giant group of 15 sat next to us, being very loud) and Chinese families. There was one particular family whose picture I wanted to take but couldn't find a way to do so. Three generations sat at a large table right in front of the live seafood tanks, which were cleverly built into the wall, and the oldest man at the table, who must have at least been in his 80s, silently ate while smashing his gums up and down in a Popeye fashion, exposing a toothless mouth. A photograph probably couldn't have done it justice, but it sums up pretty well the patrons of the restaurant.

Now the food!

Brian explained to me that this is a common street food in Hong Kong. It's stinky tofu (fermented tofu) stuffed with shrimp and friend, then covered tableside in a black bean sauce. According to Brian, the hawkers in Hong Kong will use the same oil to deep fry it for several years, which results in a ... less than satisfactory taste. This version on the other hand was very good. The tofu was fried in the restaurant, not the pre-fried kind which a lot of restaurants use, and it had a subtle "funky" flavor, similiar to a washed-rind cheese.

Beef tendon. I usually like tendon, but this gelatinous mass covered in a soy flavored sauce was a little bit too much to handle on its own. It would have been good in a soup or something, but it the texture was a little too intense for us.

Tofu stuffed with shrimp. The wrinkled up pea on top should've been a tip that this was no good. I'll stick with the fried stinky tofu and shrimp. The shrimp ball tasted like rubber...

The best two things we had: L, scallop dumplings, R, shrimp and chive dumplings. Both of these were comparable to similar dishes eaten at Jade Garden, in quality of ingredients and quality of preparation. I've eaten the scallop ones at a few different places now, and they are quickly becoming one of my favorite dim sum dishes. They have a very light seafood flavor, and if the wrapper's done right, they're delicious.

Chicken feet. I didn't like these very much. They were room temperature, and quickly got cold, plus they just didn't have that much flavor. The texture was fine, but they were pretty tasteless.

Top: cheung fan, bottom: fried dumplings with pork (foon gor? someone correct me on my Chinese...). The cheung fan were ok... nothing special, and they got cold really quickly. I also thought there was a little too much noodle, and it made it taste kind of gummy. The friend pork dumplings on they other hand were great - some of the best I've had. Very crisp on the outside, but chewy on the inside. The flavor was slightly sweet and soy-salty, with a nice meat filling. The flavors were spot on and it was cooked very well.

I'd definitely return to New Kowloon, especially if it was on the weekend, when the line apparently goes out the door. Their dinner menu also looks worthy of trying, with more than a hundred offerings and lots of fresh, live seafood.

Jade Garden: Part Two

2006-08-17T01:56:00.000-07:00

Today I visited Jade Garden again, but sadly forgot my camera. Dim sum two days in a row! I lead a crazy life.

We had many of the same dishes as last time, but a few which were different.

Lemon tarts and sesame balls (gin duy?): I'm usually not a big fan of dim sum sweets, but these were good. The tarts had very flaky crusts and creamy custard, and they were just small enough to not be overwhelming (as if the rest of the items we ate were light...). The sesame balls were perfect, not stale at all, which I've experienced before.

We also had two different seafood dumplings, both in clear wrappers. One was lobster and shrimp, the other, scallop and shrimp. The lobster one was open on the top to reveal a chunk of delicious lobster resting on a bed of shrimp, with some sort of garnish (fish egg maybe?) This was really good! The shrimp didn't overpower the l0bster, which I thought it may have. The scallop one was great as well, with three or four whole small scallops in each dumpling. The wrappers were also really good; a little chewy, but soft enough to melt or slide down your throat easily.

This experience just made me like Jade Garden even more, especially considering as that we went toward the end of dim sum service (around 1:45), and it was still good.

China Gate

2006-08-16T01:48:00.000-07:00

A new addition to the blog: pictures!

Today we visited China Gate. This restaurant has an impressive facade that recalls some of the big dim sum restaurants in San Francisco. The food on the other hand... well I'll get to that.

But first let's meet the dim sum eaters, Brian and me, respectively:

A very flattering picture of me, obviously.

Now on to the food.

China Gate was very average. Nothing stuck out particularly, and the restaurant was not crowded at all, and even then, about half white people. Pretty untrustworthy. There were also only two carts going around the whole time we were there, and the selection never seemed to change. Granted it is a Tuesday, but compared to other restaurants, this seemed kind of lackluster.

First three items, clockwise from top: siu mai, fried lobster and shrimp things with mayo sauce, vegetable and shrimp dumplings. The siu mai were, in my opinion, one of the worst offerings. They were not juicy at all, they tasted a little bit rubbery and vaguely of pork. Like eating an old meatball. The lobster dumplings were quite good, though they were heavier on the shrimp than lobster. I didn't much care for the mayo sauce, as I hate mayo in general. Not a bad offering though. The vegetable shrimp dumplings were OK - a more vegetably version of the usual one with shrimp and chives.

Phoenix claws (chicken feet): these were pretty good. About as meaty as Jade Garden's but I didn't like the sauce as much. It was a little too salty for my tastes. Brian thought they were the best so far though.

Left, cheong fan, right, eggplant stuffed with shrimp/fish paste: the cheong fan were pretty good, about the same as Jade Garden's. Nice sized shrimp and good noodle. Brian thought they were a little tasteless, but I couldn't tell. The eggplant, on the other hand was terrible. It was incredibly greasy, yet didn't taste fried at all. Just covered in oil. The sauce was a cornstarch disaster about the consistency of snot, and the filling was not the usual shrimp but some sort of rubbery seafood paste. This is the only thing we didn't finish.

Char siu bao: this was ok. The dough was not very fluffy, but the filling was pretty good, very sweet.

I think this was the best offering of the meal. Nice transluscent wrappers, which, unlike Jade Garden's and Honey Court's, did not fall apart. The inside was full of juicy shrimp and garlicky chives. This was very good, especially considering that the rest was so sub par.

Har gow: tightly packed dumplings full of shrimp. These were average. Nothing about them stood out to me, but they were good. Like the shrimp and chive dumplings, these had nice wrappers that did not fall apart. Not as transluscent as I like though; the more transluscent the wrapper the better the consistency I've found.

Jade Garden

2006-08-09T02:25:00.000-07:00

Jade Garden is pretty well known as one of Seattle's top dim sum places, and this could easily be seen by the packed house on a Tuesday morning.

The restaurant is a definite step up in decor from Honey Court, but with Chinese restaurants increase in decor can often mean decrease in flavor. Luckily, that was not the case here.

We started off with two dim sum standards, a good way to judge the overall ability of a dim sum place: siu mai, and cheong fan. The siu mai were very juicy and flavorful - probably a lot of pork fat involved. The cheong fan were also great. The noodles were slippery and very fresh tasting, encasing some nice sized shrimp.

These two things set the pace for the rest of the meal, which was as close to San Francisco or Vancouver dim sum as I've found in Seattle.

We tried several different shrimp based offerings, including fried shrimp-stuffed eggplant, har gow and pan fried shrimp and chive dumplings. All were delcious, although the eggplant was room temperature, verging on cold. The wrapper for the har gow was a little flimsy, but it didn't really effect the taste, just made eating a little frustrating. I preferred the shrimp and chive dumpling to the har gow, because it didn't fall apart quite as much, plus I loved the strong chive flavor.

The one dish that Honey Court did better than Jade Garden was the chicken feet. Jade Garden's had a stronger star anise flavor, but otherwise just tasted a little weaker. The feet themselves were bigger and had more meat/skin on them, but they seemed to be missing something. They tasted as if they were either not braised with the sauce, or not braised for long enough. I liked the strong star anise flavor, just wish the soy flavor could've been there to round it out.

Baked char siu bao were perfect - fluffy buns with a sweet glazed top, and sweet barbecue pork inside. I like the steamed ones better, but these came around first :)

I've eaten a lot of dim sum in my day, and I'd like to think I've tried just about everything, but I encountered something completely new today. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's a dumpling with a clear wrapper, similar to har gow, but filled with ground pork and shrimp, peanuts, and some sort of brown sauce. The texture was a little weird, as it was about half peanuts/half meat, but it had a complex flavor I'd like to try again.

Although we've just started, I think Jade Garden will emerge as one of the best, if not THE best dim sum place in Seattle. Brian declared it the best dim sum he's had outside of Hong Kong, and though I've never been to Hong Kong, I'd have to say that I'm pretty sure he's right.

Honey Court

2006-08-09T01:03:00.000-07:00

I've always passed this place, and seen the sign for dim sum, but it's one of the few restaurants I've never actually eaten at. With my partner in crime, Brian, a Hong Kong native and dim sum lover, I made my first visit.

The place isn't super fancy, and has a sort of disheveled charm, echoed by the bunched up looking fish tanks near the entrance and overall drab interior. This is not a fancy dim sum place, but it's also not a dump. On a Tuesday morning at 11:30, the restaurant is fairly crowded with people enjoying tea, food and conversation, essentially the idea of dim sum. The women pushing around the carts are friendly, especially when Brian speaks Chinese with them, and I stare blankly. One waitress was apparently a little more than friendly, and though I don't know what they talked about, Brian implied that she wanted to perform various sexual acts on him. At least maybe in that case we'd get a few dollars knocked off the bill? This definitely isn't a place you'd go for a dim sum blowout, but as a place to eat a little and chat without spending too much money, it serves its purpose well.

This review is a culmination of two visits, so there are quite a few dishes to talk about.

With Brian's aid, I was able to get a few things they usually won't serve to a white guy such as myself. One was a tripe dish, the other, chicken's feet. Both dishes were in a similar soy-based sauce. The tripe was tinted a reddish hue, and had a braised-soft texture, while remaining a little crunchy; a good vehicle for the sauce. This was the first time I had eaten chicken's feet, so at first I was a little afraid, but I overcame my fear, and in fact, was overcome with joy upon eating. They're mostly skin with a little bit of cartilage thrown in, and really, how can you go wrong with fried, steamed and braised chicken skin?

Those two dishes were exemplary, or seemed so any way because I didn't really have much to compare them to. The other dishes were not quite as good.

Most of the dumplings suffered from pasty tasting wrappers. Even the steamed char siu bao had a kind of pasty tasting dough. The fillings were similarly sketchy, with ground up bits of god-knows-what. No whole shrimp here, aside from the measly little things in the cheong fan.

The turnip cake, a perennial favorite of mine, was ok. Nothing great, but at least a notch above the dumplings. Good creamy texture, but there was still something missing.

Although the food wasn't great, I would probably go back to this place. The convivial atmosphere filled in the gaps in flavor, and put me in the mood to sit around and talk for a couple hours, eating and drinking, if only mindlessly.

Seattle Dim Sum

2006-08-08T23:33:00.000-07:00

This post will serve as a "mission statement" of sorts for this blog. The mission? To try, and review, every dim sum place in Seattle, and maybe a few in the outer regions of the city. To eat as much as possible, as many different dim sum items as possible, and to find the best dim sum in a city with many options.