What Dim Sum To Order
Dec 30th, 2007 by admin
[UPDATE: Have a look at my other posts What is Chinese Dim Sum?, What's Your Favourite Dim Sum and Where to Eat Dim Sum in London.]
Going for Christmas dim sum with my colleagues last week inspired me to write about what dim sum to order. Whenever I have dim sum with non-Chinese friends, the task of ordering is inevitably left to me, but I do actually enjoy choosing the food and generally being in charge of the meal (which involves making sure everyone’s cups are regularly refilled, keeping track of what dishes have arrived and checking the bill).
Having eaten dim sum regularly since I was a small child, I’ve tried most types, and by process of elimination, now know what I like and don’t like. Of course, everyone has his or her own preferences. When I eat with family and Chinese friends, we each order the things we like best, to be shared with everyone else. There’ll be some things we all like, and also things only a certain few will eat.
The dishes I recommend below seem to be enjoyed by most people, so they’re also the least ‘risky’. By all means experiment with tripe and steamed chicken claws. Some love the more unusual dim sum, but others won’t eat them, me included, although I have tasted them before.
It’s good to have a mixture of steamed, fried and baked dim sum, as you’ll get a nice combination of flavours and textures. Below are just some of the traditional basics that you can find in almost any good Chinese dim sum restaurant. Modern restaurants will offer dim sum with more unusual ingredients, at higher prices of course. I like both traditional and modern dim sum, depending on the mood and the people I’m eating with.
Steamed dim sum:
Har gau or prawn dumplings are a classic that you must try. When well made with a thin, translucent skin and fresh crunchy pieces of prawn, they are my absolute favourite. I’ve eaten them regularly since I was about three or four, so I know my har gau well. Dim sum just wouldn’t be right without har gau.
Prawn and chive dumplings come a close second, and are my brother’s favourite. Char siu bao or roast pork buns are wonderful – juicy barbecue roast pork pieces inside a fluffy white bun, best eaten steaming hot. Peel the paper off the base of the bun and use fingers, rather than chopsticks, to break the bun into two pieces.
Steamed spare ribs in chilli and black bean sauce are very tasty too. You have to pop the whole piece in your mouth and work off the meat, then remove the clean bone from your mouth with your chopsticks. Also excellent is the glutinous rice with meat, which is served as a steamed parcel wrapped inside a lotus leaf. It’s sticky and full of flavour from the other ingredients like dried pork sausage and Chinese mushroom. Open up the parcel and help yourself with chopsticks or a serving spoon.
Finally, if you see xiao long bao or Shanghai dumplings on the menu, do order them! They’re not traditional Cantonese dim sum, but they’re so delicious that the opportunity to eat them can’t be missed. Read more here and here about them, as they warrant two separate posts.
Cheung fun:
Cheung fun are steamed rice noodle rolls, filled with prawn, char sui (barbecue roast pork), beef or fried dough stick. These are the traditional four fillings, but modern Chinese restaurants have fancier versions now, like prawn and gai lan, or three mushroom. My favourite is the prawn, followed by the roast pork. I avoid the minced beef at all costs, as for some reason, it doesn’t taste like beef at all. I’ve not had it in any restaurant around the world where I’ve been able to eat it.
Fried and grilled dim sum:
Turnip paste or cake with dried Chinese meat is very tasty. It usually comes in three small blocks on a plate. Paper wrapped prawns are lovely too, if a little greasy. I used to eat these a lot. Cuttlefish cakes with coriander are also on my personal list of favourites. And if you see grilled Shanghai dumplings, you must order them! I’ll say no more. Drink plenty of Chinese tea, as it helps break down the fatty things you’ve eaten.
Baked dim sum:
Roast pork puffs are one of my favourites in this category. The char siu inside is a little sweet, while the pastry is light and flaky. The wu kok or taro root croquettes are also great – pork cooked with a thick outer layer of taro root, then baked. I usually save my egg custard tart for the end of the meal. If you order these when you’re ready for them, then they’ll come nicely warmed up. Otherwise they’ll be stone cold by the time you’ve finished your lunch.
Fried noodles:
These are a common staple at the dim sum table, but I like to eat this after the savoury dim sum. Seafood with fried ho fun (flat rice noodles) is nice, although my childhood favourite is the classic beef with fried ho fun. If you don’t want the noodles to get cold, order when you want them, otherwise they’ll just arrive along with the dim sum.
Sweet dim sum:
If you like sweet dim sum, these should be eaten towards the end of the meal, as the combination of sweet and savoury isn’t that nice. This is when I would eat my egg custard tart. The classic Hong Kong Cantonese pudding to have is mango pudding, but some restaurants don’t make it with fresh mango. I like tapioca pudding with yam the best, served either hot or cold.
It’s also slightly easier than it used to be to eat dim sum as a vegetarian, as my husband will testify. Some places do now have a decent selection of vegetarian dim sum on offer, like Shanghai Blues. Dim sum can always be supplemented with a selection from the main menu, including tofu, vegetables with noodles and fresh Chinese greens.
I hope this post will make ordering dim sum slightly less confusing. You also don’t have to order everything in one go. Try a few dishes at a time, then you’ll know how much more you need to order. And best of all, you’ll always have piping hot dim sum. As for how to eat dim sum, that’s another story, which you can read about by clicking on the link!
Let me know what your favourite dim sum are…
Check out the Useful Info page for more informational posts on Chinese food.
Hi, Happy New Year. We are just getting ready to go out for dim sum so your post is most appropriate. I find a good measure of how good the dim sum is at a restaurant is if you order the classics when you first try a restaurant- har gau (prawn dumplings) and siu mai (pork and prawn dumplings). If the basics are good then it’s a good sign that other dishes will be good. This is the measure I take for any restaurant and any cuisine. If I want a place for good Chinese plate dishes for lunches, I order the roast duck and rice. If I want to eat good Thai food, I order a simple pad thai, etc. My theory is if the basics are good, you can’t go wrong (well mostly).
Susan S. Cheung
Hi Susan, Happy New Year! Just back from Bologna and stuffed from too much good Italian food. So I’m looking forward to some dim sum when I’ve recovered! I totally agree with you about the basics – if they are good, other things will also be good. We tried that strategy in Italy, and it worked! Helen Yuet Ling
Yum yum. I went to Superstar in the Docklands yesterday – if you ever venture out that far east, I’d highly recommend it. I’d almost dare say the dim sum is on par with Yauatcha (though not as fancy)!
The pork and prawn shumais were excellent… and I usually don’t like shumai (but it’s usually ordered because everyone else I know likes them). There are things I’ll always order… like seen jouk guen (beancurd rolls in oyster sauce), spring rolls, prawn cheung fun, loh mai gai (sticky rice with chicken in lotus leaves)… oh so many! I agree with what you said about minced beef cheung fun – truly vile stuff.
Mmm… char siu puffs … I love the Hakkasan/Yauatcha update with venison.
For desserts my ultimate favourites would have to be coconut puddings, or mango and pomelo sago (yeung zhi gum loe)… and of course, if they sell it, tofu fa!
You can obviously tell from this massive comment that I do like my dim sum, haha. Happy new year Helen!
Hi Charmaine, Happy New Year to you too! Thanks for this great recommendation. I totally trust your taste and your reviews, so I’ll definitely check out Superstar very soon. I also don’t like shumai (something funny about it – like it’s not quite cooked in the middle), but I’ll try them at Superstar. When I’ve recovered from the excesses of the Bologna trip…Helen
I love a good wu kok – those deep fried frilly taro orbs filled with a meat mixture. I must always have those!
Hi Su-Lin! I agree, I love them too. I refer to them as yam croquettes, but of course, they are wu kok. When they’re properly done, they’re perfect!…Helen Yuet Ling
Wu kok and turnip cake are my favorites of the fried dim sum! They are amazing! (Oh, and the red bean paste filled sesame balls- when those are good, they are wonderful, but when they are bad, they are dreadful.)
I also like sweet steamed buns–the best are the ones filled with lotus seed paste, though my husband disagrees and gobbles up the red bean paste ones. My favorite buns, though are the ones I make at home–they are filled with a mixture of mushrooms in a sauce similar to the one used in char siu bao. I came up with them when I had a dim sum party where a lot of vegetarians were visiting, so I came up with it so they could have a non-sweet steamed bun.
Your site is great–I am going to add it to my blogroll, and post links to your chopstick etiquette post.
Hello Barbara! Thank you so much for adding me to your blogroll, and most of all for linking to my etiquette post from Tigers and Strawberries. Your blog is a fantastic resource, and I’m going to spend some time going through all your lovely recipes, especially the Chinese ones. I’ve also been trying to catch up with learning about Chinese cooking, and my mother’s been helping a lot, but you can never learn enough! My husband is vegetarian, so we’ve had to be quite creative when it comes to eating Chinese food…
Thanks again!
Helen Yuet Ling
Mmm,Dim Sum. Introduced to me in 1992 by a Chinese friend while I was living in London. We used to go to the Dragon Inn a lot on Gerrard St,but they changed the Dim Sum menu some years later and we stopped going there because it wasnt as good as before. Now my regular place is Lido on Gerrard Street. Next time I am going to try the turnip cake (I think they have it there) as I havent had it in years.
Always on my order are Char Sui Cheung Fun,Veitnamese Spring Roll,Paper Wrapped King Prawn,Siu Mai,Har Gow,Wu Gok,Char Sui Buns.Sounds a lot,but hey,thats why they have to-go boxes!! Anything I dont eat goes with me and is eaten cold as a snack in the pub later that day.
I loved your comment about drinking loads of tea to help break down the fatty stuff. I’ve been doing this for years after I learned not to drink beer with my meal ( offers no aid to digestion whatsoever !!!) Our traditional thing is to have dimsum,wander around the streets waiting for it to digest and then go for a drink.
(Not much fun on a full stomach!) So lots of tea definitely helps. Took a while for it to sink in to my friend,but ho got the message eventually too !!
Glad i found this page,looking at those pics is making me yearn for Dim Sum right now.
Andrew – you certainly know your dim sum. I always order loads, but there are never any leftovers. About the tea, that’s what my family tell me. I don’t drink as much now as I did before, because too much caffeine makes me quite loopy (alongside the MSG in the dim sum!).
Thanks for visiting…
Helen Yuet Ling
Am reading the post to try and learn the names of the things I’ve been ordering for years.
Never had xiao long bao but love a variety of steamed dumplings including prawn and scallop ones, love char sui bao, love paper wrapped prawns, love sticky rice parcels though it depends where as in some places I love the flavours and contents like chinese sausage and in other places there’s more of a rotten fish taste about them which I don’t like at all), I love cheung fun with scallop or prawn or char sui or the fried doughnut ( hollowlegs Lizzie introduced me to that last one at a BBC Food Chat GTG), love the croquettes with minced meat inside and crunchy coating with sort of fried threads surrounding (remind me of findus crispy pancakes, don’t laugh) and so many more.
Have tried duck tongue and chicken feet and whilst I didn’t hate them I didn’t see the point of sucking these non-edible parts. So I’ve not had them again.
Some others things I’ve had when with others who know the menus better such as jellyfish, which I liked and tripe, which I didn’t!