# Favorite Dim Sum dishes



## spork (Feb 21, 2010)

Chinese Dim Sum is the best restaurant lunch experience (hands down, including the venerable sandwich).

Do you have a favorite dish?  I don't.  I just look at waiters' carts as they pass by my table, listen to their offerings (mostly incomprehensible), and point at my choices.  I do look for, though, whether for family fun or business meeting...

sticky/sweet/glutinous rice
Chinese green beans/broccoli, served with oyster sauce
shrimp in rice noodle, actually in a steamed kudzu starch wonton
dumplings with various fillings, if I like the kitchen
and just on weekends for most places, roast succulent pork

I also like taro/rice turnover cakes and have learned never to point my finger at a dim sum dish of BBQ pork.


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## qmax (Feb 21, 2010)

Shu mei
Chicken feet.


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## spork (Feb 21, 2010)

I also grab chicken feet because it's tasty, gnarly, and shuts people up busily eating.


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## mexican mama (Feb 22, 2010)

Mine are pork SioMai (pork dumplings) and Siopao ( steamed buns)..also chinese style fried rice w/sweet and sour pork! I love this stuff!


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## spork (Feb 22, 2010)

I have to describe the succulent pork...

It's roasted whole, or half.
The dim sum plate usually comes with a first bed of sharply pickled juliennes of carrot and daikon radish.  On top is a mound of 1-inch cubed pork, each is very white with one side having a dark crisp skin of crunch.  It's fatty, but well cooked I can't tell or taste the difference between fat and meat.  Covering the mound, or on the side, are 6x1-inch coin-thin strips of the roasted pig's refried skin, like addictive chicharonnes chips.  A saucer of straight hoi sin sauce is usually provided for dipping.

Dim Sum is a lot like Spanish Tapas.


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## bandonjan (Feb 23, 2010)

My favorite is the steamed pork buns, shrimp stuffed dumplings, sticky rice and the custard tarts. I don't get Dim Sum around here and I really miss it.


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## Claire (Feb 23, 2010)

Oh, I am so jealous.  We cannot get dim sum here, and it all sounds good to me.  I've never worked up the courage for chicken feet, but it has been so long that I'd probably welcome it!  When we lived in Hawaii, I could buy shu mai in the freezer section of the military commissary.  I miss the international flair of military life in those days.


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## spork (Feb 23, 2010)

*yum cha*

dim sum also goes by the name "yum cha," which I like because it describes "yummy stuff with tea."  Great restaurants will serve you gratis a pot of your choice of tea, good restaurants have waiters who recognize the universal sign of an empty pot, a tilted lid.

I should also describe shrimp in rice noodle...
Imagine a translucent ravioli square/triangle (rice is okay but a kudzu pasta becomes completely opaque) with a single curled pink prawn.  Inside the pocket was added a snuff-spoon of congealed pork fat that melts as it steams.  It's finished with a big spoon pour of diluted oyster sauce.  Good stuff, a great bite, finished with tea.


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## PrincessFiona60 (Feb 24, 2010)

I've never had a real Dim Sum meal...would really like to try it.


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## spork (Feb 26, 2010)

Traditional "sticky rice" is a small fist size triangular portion wrapped in lotus leaves and steam for a very long time, so that each rice kernel maintains their glistening pearlescence while attaining a magical stickiness due to their exterior glutin.  Flavor comes mostly from fried rice ingredients, maybe dried shrimp and mushroom that work well with long cooking.  Sweetness often comes from lap chong, a common asian sweet sausage.  Part of the fun is opening up the lotus leaves.

I also like dim sum plates of spareribs in black bean sauce.  Tasty mable-size nbbits.  And sesame balls with sweet bean paste from the dessert cart.


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## 97guns (Mar 2, 2010)

sui mai - pork dumplings
har gau - shrinp dumplings

these are the 2 must haves when dim summing, if you notice when they push the carts around they usually yell out HAR GAW - SUI MAI !!!!!!


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## ThaiTeaGal (May 31, 2010)

I have 3 favorite dim sum dishes....

1.) shaomai (pork & shrimp)
2.) shrimp dumplings
3.) steamed meatballs


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## supdog (Jan 11, 2012)

BBQ pork buns and sesame balls. I have made the sesame balls a few times but instead of sweetened bean paste (can't find it) I mix hoisin sauce and peanut butter with some sesame oil and a pinch of sugar.


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## Savory (Jan 11, 2012)

Shrimp dumpling - Ha Gao

Chicken feet - Feng Zua


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## CWS4322 (Jan 11, 2012)

I love the steamed squid!!! I don't think I've tried Feng Zua (nor will I, I rub Myrtle's feet when I hold her to warm her up...chickens have a little "bulb" in the center of their feet...and she curls her little claws around my hand and purrs...I couldn't eat those!).


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## Addie (Jan 11, 2012)

CWS4322 said:


> I love the steamed squid!!! I don't think I've tried Feng Zua (nor will I, I rub Myrtle's feet when I hold her to warm her up...chickens have a little "bulb" in the center of their feet...and she curls her little claws around my hand and purrs...I couldn't eat those!).


 
I have had many experiences in life, but I don't think I have ever heard a chicken purr.


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## taxlady (Jan 11, 2012)

I used to love going for dim sum, though I seldom knew what we were eating. I don't go any more, now that I'm not allowed soy. I only eat in Asian restaurants where the wait staff are good at English. Many of the dim sum ladies don't seem to speak any English.


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## 4meandthem (Jan 12, 2012)

I have eaten a wide variety of offerings but I am a Dim Sum Virgin! I think I just found my 2012 resolution. I would try the chicken feet and just about anything else.
I like the restaurants where nobody including the patrons speak much English. You usually found the right spot!


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## CWS4322 (Jan 12, 2012)

Addie said:


> I have had many experiences in life, but I don't think I have ever heard a chicken purr.


I don't know how else to describe the sound...but it is a soft, purring sound. Maybe she picked that up from the stray cat that visits the barn every now and again...or PF taught her that.


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## Bolas De Fraile (Jan 12, 2012)

all of these Dim Sum Menu, Dim Sum Guide - Hong Kong Tourism Board


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## Timothy (Jan 12, 2012)

I make my own, so all of them are my favorites! I can tweak the recipes so that they are exactly what I love!

I find that restaurant Dim Sum are bland and don't care much for it. I make mine with lots of spice and various textures to make them more interesting. 

Dim Sum is easy to make. The prepping is the nightmare, but sushi is the same way, so you just have to get into the mindset to make it.


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## spork (Jan 13, 2012)

Bolas De Fraile said:


> all of these Dim Sum Menu, Dim Sum Guide - Hong Kong Tourism Board


+1 for the site's thumbnail pics and Cantonese names.

Sugar cane shrimp sticks are fun to eat – ground shrimp molded onto a spear of sugar cane, steamed and then sometimes grilled.  I like black bean ribs, too, but like chicken feet it is awkward to eat (trimmed bits of pork rib bone & ligaments cooked in black bean sauce) because the inedible parts are meant to be spit back out onto the table next to your plate.  I rarely pick up a plate of char siu barbecue pork because most Chinese restaurants outsource this in large quantity and then charge tourist’s price for it.


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## taxlady (Jan 13, 2012)

Timothy said:


> I make my own, so all of them are my favorites! I can tweak the recipes so that they are exactly what I love!
> 
> I find that restaurant Dim Sum are bland and don't care much for it. I make mine with lots of spice and various textures to make them more interesting.
> 
> Dim Sum is easy to make. The prepping is the nightmare, but sushi is the same way, so you just have to get into the mindset to make it.



I thought the whole point of Dim Sum was to go out for good food at lunch time *with a bunch of friends*. It always has been for me and many of my friends.


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## Timothy (Jan 13, 2012)

taxlady said:


> I thought the whole point of Dim Sum was to go out for good food at lunch time *with a bunch of friends*. It always has been for me and many of my friends.


 
While I see your point, I enjoy eating well at home. I don't mind eating by myself and thank goodness I'm a good cook. It's fun to eat out with friends, but much less expensive to eat as well or even better at home by making this type of dish yourself.


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## Bolas De Fraile (Jan 14, 2012)

taxlady said:


> I thought the whole point of Dim Sum was to go out for good food at lunch time *with a bunch of friends*. It always has been for me and many of my friends.


Tax according to Chairman Mao Dim Sum tea houses were hotbeds of revolution, his logic was that people who spend 3 hours eating and talking must be plotting to overthrow the state.
Mao closed them all down and sent the chefs to work in the fields, lots escaped thankfully and traveled to different parts of the world.Liverpool has the oldest china town in Europe and many chefs started there.
My Mum loves dim sum so much she started to look Chinese, this is her on her 94 b/day just before we went in.


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## Addie (Jan 14, 2012)

CWS4322 said:


> I don't know how else to describe the sound...but it is a soft, purring sound. Maybe she picked that up from the stray cat that visits the barn every now and again...or PF taught her that.


 
Yes, now I know what you mean. It seems to come from the back of their throat. A very slow, low, soft gurgle almost. They seem to be able to do it even while eating.


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## Addie (Jan 14, 2012)

Bolas De Fraile said:


> Tax according to Chairman Mao Dim Sum tea houses were hotbeds of revolution, his logic was that people who spend 3 hours eating and talking must be plotting to overthrow the state.
> Mao closed them all down and sent the chefs to work in the fields, lots escaped thankfully and traveled to different parts of the world.Liverpool has the oldest china town in Europe and many chefs started there.
> My Mum loves dim sum so much she started to look Chinese, this is her on her 94 b/day just before we went in.
> View attachment 12824


 
She even has on a Mao jacket it looks like.


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## CWS4322 (Jan 14, 2012)

Addie said:


> Yes, now I know what you mean. It seems to come from the back of their throat. A very slow, low, soft gurgle almost. They seem to be able to do it even while eating.


They do it when they want to eat, too!


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