Re: [gardeners]dim sum

Brenda Pink (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Fri, 14 Aug 1998 21:14:27 -0600 

Penny, you have my mouth watering!  I don't recognize all of these, but
that's no surprise.  There are so many different combinations of ingredients
and each cook has his own way of putting them together.  I've even had the
same dish served different ways in the same restaurant!  And as many cooks
out there, there are as many, if not more cookbooks offering the same number
of combinations.

Glad to see that my warnings and predictions about dim sum places hold
true.  At least you were forewarned that it MIGHT not be shrimp!

Another great dish, which you may not find on dim sum (you may have to order
it) is Salt and Pepper Squid.  It is easily my favourite and I feel like Meg
Ryan in When Harry Met Sally when I eat it!  MMMmmm.

And, also glad to see that you have the right attitude for enjoying Dim Sum
- try it, you might just like it....though I confess to not liking the tripe
myself.  I've looked at too much of that in my line of work to enjoy eating
it!

Brenda
Lethbridge

penny x stamm wrote:

> 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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