What We Ate This Weekend

A Taste of Dim Sum in Flushing, with notes and pics from a variety of sources, courtesy of Mama.

If you've never been, dim sum is like Chinese brunch where tapas-like little servings of lots of foods are pushed around in carts and you stop them and choose what you want. The place we went, a huge banqueting hall in Flushing, is extremely popular and busy so we got there early so we could get a seat near the kitchen, providing the best variety and hottest selection.

Bud liked the shao mai best, plus the waterchestnut cake and steamed sponge cake (he even drank the tea, once it had cooled), while Sis preferred the char sia bao (the bbq pork buns), dan tat, steamed custard buns. Mama eats everything, but I preferred all the desserts (including coconut custard and almond dofu, not included here), since almost nothing else is vegetarian (though I got some great greens with oyster sauce, plus the turnip and taro cakes I really like). All in all, despite the funeral of Sen. Kennedy on every tv screen, we had a wonderful time on our first family dim sum outing. Bud even managed to eat a meatball with chopsticks all by himself! While Sis liked wandering to the food stations (you can order food there, in addition to all the food carts being pushed around) with Gong.

Shaomai (燒賣 siu mai): Small steamed dumplings with either pork, prawns or both inside a thin wheat flour wrapper. Usually topped off with crab roe and mushroom.


Shrimp Dumpling (蝦餃 har gau): A delicate steamed dumpling with whole or chopped-up shrimp filling and thin wheat starch skin.


Rice noodle rolls or cheong fun (腸粉 cheong fun): These are wide rice noodles that are steamed and then rolled. They are often filled with different types of meats or vegetables inside but can be served without any filling. Rice noodle rolls are fried after they are steamed and then sprinkled withsesame seeds. Popular fillings include beef, dough fritter, shrimp, and barbecued pork. Often topped with a sweetened soy sauce. (we had the shrimp one)


Steamed meatball (牛肉球 ngau4 juk6 kau4): Finely-ground beef is shaped into balls and then steamed with preserved orange peel and served on top of a thin bean-curd skin.


Taro dumpling (芋角 wu gok): This is made with mashed taro, stuffed with diced shiitake mushrooms, shrimp and pork, deep-fried in crispy batter.


Steamed Lotus Paste Bun


The bamboo steamed version is generally known as (鮮竹捲, sin jyut gyun). It is wrapped with dried tofu skin (腐竹, fu zhu). During the cooking process, the tofu skin is hydrated. It makes the roll very soft and tender. This is the version most commonly served as a dim sum dish during yum cha sessions. The steamed tofu skin rolls often contain bamboo shoots.


Turnip cake (蘿蔔糕 lo bak go): cakes are made from mashed daikon radish mixed with bits of dried shrimp and pork sausage that are steamed and then cut into slices and pan-fried.


Taro cake (芋頭糕): The pan fried square taro cake is semi-crunchy on the outside and medium-soft on the inside


Water chestnut cake (馬蹄 糕 maa tai gow): cakes made of water chestnut. It is mostly see-thru and clear


Egg tart (蛋撻 dan tat): composed of a base made from either a flaky puff pastry type dough or a type of non-flaky cookie dough with an egg custard filling, which is then baked. Some high class restaurants put bird's nest on top of the custard. In other places egg tarts can be made of a crust and a filling of egg whites and some where it is a crust with egg yolks. Some egg tarts now have flavors such as taro, coffee, and other flavors. There are also different kinds of crust. There is also a flaky crisp outer crust with layers and layers of crunchy crumbs.


Jin deui or Matuan (煎堆 or 麻糰): Especially popular at Chinese New Year, a chewy dough filled with red bean paste, rolled in sesame seeds, and deep fried.


Spring roll (春捲 cheun gyun): a roll consisting of various types of vegetables — such as sliced carrot, cabbage, mushroom, and wood ear fungus — and sometimes meat are rolled inside a thin flour skin and deep fried.


White sugar sponge cake (also called white sugar cake and white sugar pastry) is a type of Chinese pastry.