Westerners often have trouble choosing what to eat at Dim Sum restaurants. Being a British Born Chinese, I'm often stuck for choice too. So I asked my aunt for some tips and here are her top 5 recommendations. When ordering dim sum, it is normally suffice to order about 3 or 4 selections per person. When visiting a restaurant with my family, we will often also ordered a rice or noodle dish as an accompaniment.
Please note that spellings may be slightly different due to translations.
1 - Woo Gork
A stuffing of shitake mushrooms, minced pork, dried shrimp and Chinese five-spice is wrapped with mashed taro root and flour. The resulting delight is deepfried and has a brown or dark yellow coating. These are normally served in portions of three at the start of a meal.
2 - Har Gau
Shrimp Dumplings.... The filling contains minced prawns and bamboo shoot. The pastry is a light translucent rice-flour, and white in colour. These dumplings are steamed and definitely my favourite. They normally come served in portions of four inside a steaming basket.
3 - Siu Mai
Pork Dumplings. Sometimes with a little prawn as well. The wrapping is made of won ton egg pastry and the top is left open. The top is sometimes dotted with black mushrooms and/or an orange substance. The orange substance is normally carrot. But fancier places use small fish eggs. I was put off these as a kid when a restaurant once gave me a raw Siu Mai. Like Har Gaus, these are usually served in portions of four inside a steaming basket.
4 - Cheung Fun
Sometimes refered to as Chinese Cannoli, these rice noodle rolls are a close second favourite of mine, after Har Gau. They are wide, long, white lumps of rice noodle. Served on plates and swimming in sweet soya sauce. They usually come with a variety of fillings. My favourite stuffing is prawn. And my second favourite is a deep fried pastry. The deep fried pastry variety is normally cut into inch long sections.
5 - Char Siu Bow
These are fist sized rolls containing Chinese BBQ Pork. I'm not a big fan myself, but many people really like them. The pastry is made from wheat, and normally light, white and fluffy. Be careful when eating these as the stuffing can be very hot.
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