China
One cool thing this week was I got to use the passport stamp from my own passport for China.
There are many options for Chinese cuisine and it can be a difficult decision which way to go but I knew from the start I wanted to visit a dim sum restaurant. For those who don’t know dim sum is a Cantonese style of food cooked in small bites or portions often served in small steam baskets. It is perfect for trying a lot of different dishes. Bringing friends means you can try even more items without overstuffing, and well, all meals are just better with friends. So I called in reinforcements from Columbia; the McGehees, Andy, Melanie & Ian plus Ms. Christy Goodman.
They first introduced me to the Dim Sum Chinese Restaurant in Charlotte and it has never failed us. The place isn’t fancy by any stretch but it is clean and bright. You can order from a menu if you want but the main attraction for us is the dim sum that comes around on carts of steamers or plates. They push it up to your table and you pick out what you like or think is interesting. We wound with several types of dumplings, buns, crepes, feet, custards. That’s right I said feet. Tried my first and probably last chicken feet on this trip. As you can see in the photo (3rd one down) they don’t look bad and honestly they aren’t.
The chicken feet had a nice coating that was flavorful but the foot itself was mostly skin and gelatinous goo that was sort of chicken flavored and overall very bony. They weren’t bad but my overall impression was more of a “why bother” with all the other delicious options available. So while I wouldn’t balk at eating them again, I’m not going to add them to my favorite things to eat column either.
The rice noodle shrimp things were popular at the table and the shiu mai, leek, pork and shrimp dumplings all got gobbled up. The steamed bbq buns were tasty but I forgot they had paper on the bottom so I got a little extra fiber in one bite. We had some shrimp balls and shrimp toast, not to mention the crabmeat wrapped in bacon (because what isn’t better wrapped in bacon), some shrimp, leek and egg pancakes and stuffed eggplant. For desert we had a little egg custard, not too sweet but just sweet enough to qualify as desert.
As I said this restaurant has always delivered a good meal and a good time spent with friends. If you’ve never had dim sum I encourage you to find a place that serves it, grab some friends and go enjoy. Just a tip it might be something on a weekend menu for some Chinese restaurants that may serve more “traditional” fare during the week.
Don’t forget to check out Tell Me More for a video featuring double erhu’s and a list of dim sum recipes.
I certainly enjoy your descriptions of food!!! And I laughed out loud at the extra fiber through paper cup comment. I too have tried chicken feet and determined why?? Work for…what??
One thing I didn’t know until my friend told me was that we export tons of chicken feet to China. There are supposedly bigger than your run of the mill Chinese chicken feet. Apparently even our chicken feet are fat.
Dim sum is one of my favorite dining experiences. My son-in-law is half Chinese and his parents visit often. Whenever I can I “invite” them to dim sum because they can make the experience so much better (because his mother is Chinese and can speak the language of the all-Chinese servers). My absolute favorite item is the soup dumplings and after that probably the BBQ pork buns. I’m really hungry now!
I really enjoy the variety you can try and Dim Sum like tapas is one of those things best experienced with a group in my opinion.