Re: [gardeners]dim sum

penny x stamm (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Wed, 12 Aug 1998 00:56:44 -0400 

Brenda, my Chicago daughter & hubby took us to Dim Sum
last Sunday morning at The Phoenix Restaurant, and it was
everything she had raved about. Some of the offerings were:

Noh Mai Gai (rice in lotus leaf), a favorite with roast pork, etc.
Chicken feet with homemade sauce
Beef tripe with ginger and onion
Vermicelli with preserved egg in soup
Minced pork and fried oyster congee
Vermicelli with pork and preserved mustard green
Chinese brocolli with salt fish
On-choy with bean sauce and chili
Chicken & jellyfish with fish sauce (my hubby's favorite)
Pig intestine with five spice
Pork blood with chives
Clams with black bean sauce
Fried Taro root (yum!)

etc., etc., etc...  they had other things we loved, such as what
looked like deep fried cigarettes stuffed with shrimp, hubby's
absolute favorite Har Gow (shrimp in a special noodle), green
peppers stuffed with minced shrimp, whole shrimp deep fried and
eaten shell and all (marvelous!), Chinese brocolli with oyster sauce, 
the public's favorite shui mai, and more and more...   

Yes, we took a number, and we waited for a full hour before we were
seated. The waitresses didn't speak one cotton-pickin' word of
English, except to call everything in sight shrimp, as you had warned. 
What we thought was another kind of Har Gow turned out to be crab
stick, but it was delicious. And believe it or not, at one point we had
SIX kinds of sauce-dip on the table at once! 
.................
Just the Sunday before the next daughter had taken us to the dim sum
at the St.Louis airport, China Royal. We feasted until we burst, and the
varieties offered were slightly different, no surprise. 

Daughter says Vancouver, B.C. has sensational oriental restaurants, 
one right next to the other. They just came back. 

Here near home, we make the 1-hour trip out to Flushing, Long Island,
to get 1st rate dim sum. They offer tiny black-shelled snails in a big 
heap on the plate, cooked in a good sauce. We are not as agile as the 
natives in using the chopsticks to get the snails out -- reminds me of
trying to eat pomegranates, for there's an awful lot of effort required
to get a small reward.. <g>  
.....................
Now we did not eat everything on the list above, but my kids will try
any and everything offered until they drop, so we get exposed. That's
the only way to go to Dim Sum -- with experienced enthusiasts. 

I myself make some Dim Sum I've never seen offered: steamed pearl
balls (minced pork), dried shrimp in lavor (seaweed) deep fried, and
such. Are they not true Cantonese?

And for those who like to experiment, I recommend growing 
garlic chives next summer -- using the delicious lower leaves, and not
the stiff, erect stems which are tough. They are fabulous with shredded 
chicken!  
 
Oh, be still my heart! 

Penny, NY

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