Hello! And welcome to the 22nd post of Pizza Rat's Paradise.
February 11, 2023
Another solo meal. Solo dining is a most serious sport practice I acquired in my younger days, when I enjoyed my first meal to myself substituting for my former dentist's assistant when she vacationed in Hawaii - God bless her, she deserved it. I strode into that Chinese dine-in restaurant like I knew what I was doing, and was served like a Queen. From then on, I was hooked. Highly recommend anyone try it.
Some of my favorite dim sum pictured here, which includes:
Panel 1:
BBQ Pork Buns
Pork and Shrimp Shu Mai
Har Gao
Shrimp and Chive Crystal Skin Dumplings
What looks to be Shrimp and Peanut Crystal Skin Dumplings
Dumplings in a craggly skin (won ton? maybe?) wrappers
Panel 2:
Turnip Cake
Panel 3:
Sesame Balls
I am so glad that this kind of traditional food that has stuck around to the modern age.
Most people are pretty familiar with most of these dim sum treats so I won't get terribly into it -- I do remember watching a video somewhere that dim sum brunch is enjoyed with hot tea -- I loved the hot jasmine/oolong tea they served in these hot metal teapots on each table -- and the bustling carts carrying food that came through, as if we were all enjoying a mini-train ride in the middle of a restaurant -- part of the experience I loved was interacting with each dim sum cart server -- some of them really want you to try their food, some of them are more patient, some of them you have to flag down! -- you never know what you're gonna get :)
The craggly skin dumplings were probably unique to the restaurant, or my first time trying it -- I remember when I was much younger, being so enamored by Chinese friends' parents cooking that included bean curd/tofu skin, how porous it was, and how it was able to soak up flavor so well. That's what I particularly liked about the craggly skin texture of the dumpling -- something about its increased surface area gave leeway to a more flavorful experience, and a textural contrast to the sticky-smooth sweet wrapper of the crystal dumplings.
Turnip cake especially is one of my favorite dim sum discoveries -- one of my absolute favorite things about turnip cake is how dank and umami the flavor is -- which, makes a lot of sense -- it is packed with highly savory ingredients like turnip (which can be used to make an ultimately flavorful veggie stock), dried shrimp, mushrooms, and green onion, and apparently, Chinese sausage (which I wasn't aware of). Apparently, its name is lo bak go.
Last but not least, the infamous sesame balls with red/yellow bean paste. Personally, the yellow bean paste is my favorite filling, although red is more classic. My first sesame balls were in college, and sometimes they came out so hot and quick that the oil was still bubbling/sizzling on the glutinous surface of each sphere! We would sometimes burn our tongues.
A quick Google search returns that yellow bean paste in my memory is probably actually mung bean paste, and the equivalent in Vietnamese cuisine is Bánh Cam.
If you have made it this far, thank you for reading! 💚
Appreciate any suggestions on what I should do next. If you would like to collaborate or support, feel free to comment, share, like below.
Accompanying Song: