Steamed dumplings - some filled with shrimp, others with a mixture of pork and shrimp - were all delicate, fresh and appealing.
In contrast, pan-fried buns stuffed with a dense shrimp and vegetable mixture came across as leaden. I found them nothing short of transporting - so much so that I bought an extra order to take home and freeze. Better still were triangular baked roast pork buns fashioned of flaky puff pastry. But char sui bao - steamed roast pork buns - came to the table piping hot, the soft, pale dough filled with cubed roast pork in a tangy-sweet barbecue sauce. Those turnip cakes, while good, were a trifle cold, not quite what I'd been craving. I had to get out of my seat and catch him before he could make it back to the kitchen.
He stopped at a table to dispense some to a group cheerfully conversing in Chinese and then proceeded to pass me by. 'I'm fine with these.'Īt the Sunday morning dim sum brunch, I watched a waiter make the rounds of the dining room bearing a tray of turnip cakes, a personal favorite. 'No, thank you,' I said, picking up my chopsticks.
And they wouldn't dream of automatically placing a fork at my place setting, as they did on two occasions. They would surely offer me the 'special' menu written in Chinese characters, which offers dishes other than those on the English bill of fare.
