When visiting my wife’s family, we always end up eating Chinese food. So it’s no surprise that even in Edmonton we find ourselves at a dim sum restaurant on a Sunday morning. Edmonton has a rather large community of Chinese immigrants, so Beijing Beijing is as packed as any good dim sum restaurant should be. Even with reservations, we still wait for 20 minutes before securing a table.
My mother-in-law’s favorite is this egg custard in a super buttery flakey pastry crust.
After that is savory sticky rice with ground pork and Chinese sausage wrapped up and steamed in a leaf.
This one was a little different. Usually these noodles have beef inside and are drenched with Worcestershire sauce. But this time, they have mushrooms instead, making them a little lighter in flavor. We ordered one each of shrimp, pork, beef, and mushroom.
Of course we had to get my wife’s favorite, chicken feet.
And the ever-present shumai pork and shrimp dumplings.
Daikon cake, filled with Chinese sausage
This one was new to us, squid in a curry sauce.
A steamed sweet bread
Pork short ribs
And of course no dim sum trip would be complete without my personal favorite char su bao – the BBQ port buns.
All-in-all a pretty good option for dim sum. I would return if I was in the area and in the mood.
Apparently my inlaws didn’t get enough dim sum yesterday, so today started out with another morning of gorging.
It’s another order from a form place instead of our familiar cart to table places.
We pretty much had the same stuff as yesterday but much more variety as there were 9 of us this morning – Pearl’s aunt, uncle and cousin joined us.
Daikon cakeHargow (yesterday’s was better BTW)Char Sui bao aka steamed bbq pork bunsGingerTripeShrimp and beef chuong fun or rice noodlesMa lai go aka sponge cakeSui MaiCustard bunsosamthamus jellybeef meatballs with worcheshire sauceDate jellyChicken feet Lotus leaf wrapped rice “burrito”fried pork dumpling
I don’t think we can handle another round of dim sum. So hopefully this will be the second and last dim sum post for this trip.
It seems all we did on our Hong Kong trip was eat, eat, and eat some more. As soon as we got back from the giant Buddha statue (via the Ngong Ping 360 aerial tramway), we met up with some of my wife’s extended family for dim sum at the Citygate shopping center in Tung Chung. I’ve had dim sum many times before, and since, but this was my first time in Hong Kong, so I was suprised at how authentic the places I’ve been in LA and New York actually are.
My wife’s family was very patient with me as I tried to snap these pictures as quickly as I could. They had started before we got there.
First off, some dumplings. These had shrimp, vegetables, and rice, and I believe the wrapper was tofu skin as opposed to the typical rice wrapper. Next was another dumpling, this one with a thick rice dough casing, similar to pork buns. I can’t remember what the filling was, but it was very attractive with the dark swirls on the surface… then the dumplings just kept coming and coming. Some shrimp, pork, and my personal favorit char siu pork buns (BBQ).
Shrimp Dumplings in Tofu SkinSteamed dumplingShrimp and Vegetable DumplingsPork DumplingsChar Siu BBQ Pork Buns
On to the fried dishes! There were some cute egg-shaped fried dumplings. I don’t remember the filling, but it was probably shrimp, and some vegetable spring rolls.
Fried dumplingsVegetable Sprig Rolls
Of course, since it’s dim sum, the dishes just kept coming and coming. We had some typical egg custards and the dish that most caught my eye. It was a sweet gelatin dish, but embedded in it were tiny red berries. Very very delicious.
gelatin with red berriesEgg Custard
And of course, a few noodle dishes:
Noodles with shrimp and mushroomsNoodles with shrimp
And it wouldn’t be dim sum without some turnip cakes. These are made by shredding daikon, pressing it together with shrimp, vegetables, or pork, and then pan frying them so they develop a nice crust.
Daikon cakesDaikon cakes
I promise, we’re almost done…. Some pork meatballs, very juicy, and very delicious and served with worcestershire sauce (one of my favorites), and some chicken feet. Chicken feet are not what you’d expect. They’re actually very fatty and tender, almost having a gelatin consistency. They’re cooked in a sweet sauce and are actually quite good if you can get over the mental reservations.
MeatballsChicken Feet
Finally, some sticky rice. Take some diced marinated pork, wrap it with sticky rice, bundle the whole thing in a leaf (banana or some similar large leaf) and steam it:
Sticky rice with porkSticky rice with pork unwrapped
Now didn’t that all look fantastic? Needless to say, I was stuffed afterwards and not particularly looking forward to eating again dinner. But dinner was so fantastic, a 5-star Cantonese banquet, featuring some very traditional foods that almost no-one makes today because of the labor and cost. Hungry yet? That meal is coming soon!
