bao dim sum house

los angeles, ca

website

cindy was visiting and we really wanted to get dim sum but didn't have time to drive out to the san gabriel valley. so we ended up at bao dim sum house in the beverly grove area. dim sum is decent, but with a lot of fancy touches that you wouldn't get at a normal dim sum joint. for example, the fried luo bo gao is gently served on a nice plate garnished with chopped scallions rather than getting a quick squeeze of hoisin sauce before being thrown on your table. everything was okay, but i'd much rather have a more authentic dim sum experience in the SGV.

capital seafood

arcadia, ca

link to yelp

met up with michelle and cindy c for dim sum in arcadia. so far! but it's worth the drive to see my far-flung friends and to eat yummy chinese food. the dim sum was pretty good, better than anything that i can get near my apartment in santa monica. but the best part of capital seafood is the fact that there was no wait at 12:30 pm on a weekend. incredible. plus, service was super friendly - they let me sit down and served me tea before the rest of my party arrived.

hong kong flower lounge

millbrae, ca

website

back to millbrae to drop stacey off at the airport. first, however, we stopped for dim sum. hong kong flower lounge was recommended to us by april and lennon - and they know good dim sum. this place gets very crowded very quickly - so its best to arrive shortly after they open - anytime between 10:00 am and 11:00 am is usually safe. otherwise you could end up waiting an hour for a table.

giant multi-level complex with carts, trays, and food stations. we don't bother with the food stations - we prefer the food to come to us. all the usual dim sum favorites are excellent here - shaomai, ham sui gok, congee, deep fried taro dumplings, turnip cakes, tofu skin rolls, and egg tarts. if you're a fan of ma la gou - malaysian yellow cake - be sure to special order it because it rarely shows up on the carts.

fu lam mum

mountain view, ca

website

fu lam mum is a pretty large dim sum restaurant, with the carts and everything. it doesn't have a very wide selection of dim sum, but they definitely have the basics covered. we ordered ha gow (shrimp balls wrapped in rice paper), shu mai (pork wrapped in noodle), lo mai fun (sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves), luo buo gow (turnip cake with pork) and ham sui gok (fried mochi dumplings filled with pork). sorry for the mix of cantonese and mandarin pronunciations, but that's how derek and i order dim sum.

each dim sum dish was okay - nothing spectacular and maybe a little on the greasy side for my tastes. the luo buo gow wasn't crispy enough and the ham sui gok didn't have enough pork in it. my favorite was the ma la gow (malaysian yellow cake) - which we had to make a special request for. it's extremely light, airy, not-too-sweet yellow cake, steamed in a basket. overall, i wish fu lam mum offered more variety, like the amazing spread we had at emerald in san diego. the search for quality dim sum in the south bay continues ...

emerald chinese seafood restaurant

san diego, ca

website

blogging ethics dictate that i have to disclose if there is a potential for bias in my reviews, so i have to tell you that steve's parents own this restaurant. i might be biased, but the food was seriously good. i love dim sum and emerald has all of my favorites, especially the stir-fried noodles that you don't always find at dim sum places.

shown at the bottom of the picture is the magical plate of noodles - magical because they were delicious and also because no matter how much i ate off the plate, there always seemed to be a massive pile of noodles left. other favorites were the pork shiu mai, congee, and hom sui gok (deep fried glutinous rice dumpling filled with pork). finished the meal with some egg tarts, of course, but watch out - the plates are hot! biased or not, if i'm ever in san diego again, we're going here for dim sum.

yank sing

san francisco, ca

website

strangely situated in an office building (rincon plaza) near the financial district in downtown, yank sing is a massive dim sum operation. at least on weekends, the crowd of dim sum'ers fills the restaurant and spills out into the lobby of the office building. jen and matt brought the kids and we found a perfect table in the lobby, underneath a ray of sunshine from the skylight above.

some of the dim sum options were better than others. we ate here a while ago, but i remember being a big fan of the shanghai soup dumplings and not such a fan of the regular pork dumplings. pictured is the fatty duck served in mantou pancakes - delicious. yank sing is a little pricey for dim sum, but it has a great atmosphere and quality food.

imperial garden seafood restaurant

kent, wa

website

derek's parents took us to dim sum in kent on our way to the sea-tac airport. imperial garden is one of my favorite dim sum places in the seattle area. it's a little bit of a drive from seattle, so we rarely go. but it's fresh, quality, and great variety. in addition to the standard dim sum fare, we ordered lobster over noodles.

the waiter plucked a giant lobster from the tank, brought it over to us to get our approval, and then off to the kitchen to meet its demise. shortly thereafter, we received the pictured plate. lobster was delicious, but i'm not very good at getting the meat out. which generally means entertainment for everyone as they watch me crack the poor lobster into bits and fling chunks of meat all over the table and myself. after a while, i just stuck with the noodles.

jade asian

flushing, queens

website

derek and i have been talking about exploring more of flushing (the real chinatown in new york city). y&a graciously offered to drive derek and myself to queens for some great chinese food. we had dim sum at jade asian - solid fare. my favorite was the shrimp chang fen - super wide rice noodles wrapped around cooked shrimp and coated in soy sauce.

at one point, i was just pointing to various dishes without any clue of what was inside. one plate with three crispy shells looked promising, until y took a bite - durian!! the dangerously pungent fruit commonly enjoyed in southeast asia. y is a fan, a is not. i decided to give it a try and y giggled with glee when she saw my reaction. i made derek try some too. he was less adverse to it, but not a fan. a refused to try it and y was left with the rest of the plate to enjoy.

prima tower

singapore

website

derek and i had lunch at prima tower's revolving restaurant. as it was our second lunch of the day, our focus was mostly on the awesome views of singapore. the restaurant is located at the top of the prima company's flour silo and the entire restaurant slowly rotates so that during an hour-long meal you can move about 180 degrees. we saw mount faber, sentosa island, and the port of singapore (the busiest port in the world).

dim sum was pretty good. i took a picture of the lovely chicken feet. unfortunately it's been a while since we ate there. we didn't pay for internet while in singapore because i found a mall near the hotel that had free internet kiosks. that's why i waited until we returned to new york before posting about the many singapore restaurants we went to. so i can't really remember what else we had other than the fact that it was dim sum, but i do remember the incredible views being the focus of our meal.

super star seafood restaurant

tsim sha tsui, hk

website

downtown hong kong seems to consist of a maze of malls and shops. you could probably walk from one to the other without ever seeing the sun. at the top of one of these malls, harbour city, was the super star seafood restaurant. it's a chain of restaurants and when we visited other malls later in the day we saw other branches. and it was 50% off before 12 pm - discount dim sum!

if only US malls had food this good. the best tofu i've ever had. it has a salty, crispy, lightly fried exterior. the tofu interior was like a creamy silky pudding. amazing! also: fantastic stir-fried turnip cake with XO sauce, cheong fun, fried chicken with taro, and sticky rice. we also ordered taro cakes, which are like turnip cakes but with taro. my mom used to make these for me when i was younger - delicious.

yan toh heen

kowloon, hk

website

derek's mom took us to a fancy restaurant with a great view of the harbor and hong kong island. all of the utensils were made of jade and metal! even the menu had a jade piece inset into the front. we were there for dim sum, although the other items on the menu looked good as well.

decent dim sum, but derek really liked the fried rice with spicy XO sauce. it had a lot of green onions in it and somehow they managed to keep the beef bits nice and tender. i might try making this at home. for dessert, we had chilled red bean and coconut jelly which was excellent and mochi balls with red bean paste and a giant sweet grape inside.

red egg

new york, ny

website

a great dim sum place that jinny found (i love having foodie friends). no carts, which means two things: (a) the food is fresher and (b) it is more difficult to gauge how much food you're ordering. you fill out an order form by placing numbers next to each item you want. and it's very easy to write 1s and 2s without realizing that you're ordering enough food to feed a small army.

i love their pork and chive dumplings. the stuffing is juicy and tastes almost as good as my mom's. the dumplings are overstuffed so that the thin wrappers look like they're going to burst at any moment. steamed or pan-fried, i usually eat a plate of these by myself. the buddha's roll was surprisingly good. everything else is typical dim sum fare. i like this place because it's spacious and easy to make reservations, as opposed to other chinatown dim sum places where you probably have to wait a while for a table.

1/26/2010 - reposted with better photo