7/9/2023 0 Comments Dim sum dishes![]() To her, “dim sum is an event for friends and family” where they gather in large numbers to leisurely enjoy simple dishes together.Īside from the cultural significance, there’s a practical reason to eat dim sum with a large group: you get to try as many of the shareable bites as possible. As a native Hongkonger, Shi sees the cuisine as a communal activity rather than just a meal. Don’t go soloĭim sum is traditionally meant to be experienced with a group. Whether you’re a newcomer to dim sum or an avid enthusiast, Shi has tips on how to find the best dim sum restaurants, and what to order when you get there: 1. And as a veteran with a career spanning over 25 years, her hands are more than up to the task. “Since everything is handmade, we can make things more delicate and detailed,” she says. In Hong Kong, Shi was accustomed to cooking with ingredients delivered fresh every morning but in her current kitchen, located in the Mojave Desert, she has to incorporate packaged ingredients and “tweak recipes in order to make sure everything tastes the same.”įrom the chef’s personal experience, the reason for this is simple: Women have smaller hands that are more suitable for the intricate hand-work dim sum requires. So now, she is constantly seeking ways to be more creative without sacrificing taste. But fine-dining crowds with a penchant for flavorful and visually pleasing food are looking for more than just traditional fare, Shi says. The chef and her crew churn out dim sum classics such as har gow (shrimp dumplings) and siu mai (pork-and-dried-oyster dumplings). During her 11-year career at the luxury hotel and casino, Shi and her staff of seven have been responsible for executing the daily dim sum orders at Wing Lei, the first Chinese restaurant in North America to receive a Michelin star, as well as Mizumi, Red 8 and Wazuzu. She took this lesson to heart when she became executive dim sum chef for all of the Asian restaurants at Wynn Las Vegas in the late 2000s. Shrimp dumplings, pork siu mai (a type of dumpling), steamed pork buns (fluffy buns stuffed with sticky pork), chicken feet, spareribs in black bean sauce, jiaozi dumplings (also called Chinese dumplings), cheong fun (steamed rice noodles), and turnip cake are all commonly found on dim sum menus.Without the cultural emphasis on dim sum as a communal event to add context to her cooking, Shi had to learn how to transform traditional dishes to suit the American palate-which she found to mean more seasoning and stronger flavors. "Also, each table will generally have a separate chopstick that is for communal use for the different dim sum items." What are typical dim sum dishes? "We also like to pour tea for elders first before we pour tea for ourselves, and we never eat the last piece of a dish as we want our guests to have it!" Lau said. It's a marathon, not a sprint, Crowell said. If you get 10 plates right away, you will have cold food and regret when your favorite dish goes by and you couldn't take another bite." Lean into eating family-style and ask everyone at the table what they want. "Do not take everything that is rolling by," he said. The server then records the prices of all the dishes you selected to tally your bill.Ĭrowell recommends being patient. If the restaurant has carts going to each table, you can look at each dish on the cart before marking your final decisions. You mark this sheet with the dishes you want to order, and hand it to the server. When you sit down, you'll likely be given a sheet that lists the dishes on offer and a pencil. These merchants would travel throughout the region, spreading the custom of dim sum around China. ", merchants who walked along the Silk Road for trade would stop by tea houses serving dim sum as a side dish," Lau said. This way, you can see each dish before deciding what to order. That's the traditional way dim sum is served. When you visit a dim sum restaurant, you might notice a server pushing a steamer cart around the dining room. ![]() "The meal is called yum cha, and the individual dishes are dim sum."Įach dish typically has three to four pieces, making it easy to share. "Dim sum are small dishes-steamed, baked, or fried-made to be eaten with tea," said Doug Crowell of Bao and Noodle in New Orleans. Here are the basics of dim sum, from how to order it to the traditional dishes. The traditional Chinese meal is made up of many small dishes meant to be shared and typically eaten around brunch time. "It is really about spending time with family, uniting with friends and those that you love, and enjoying each others' company."īut that's not to say the food is an afterthought. "Dim sum to us is not just about the food," said Kenny Lau of the restaurant Furama Dim Sum in Chicago.
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