[Photographs: Chichi Wang] In the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California, you can't drive more than a mile in any direction without passing another Cantonese restaurant with dim sum. The competition is so stiff that I've never encountered an awful dish in all my years of Sunday morning dim sum. To be the best in the SGV, a restaurant must be innovative in its interpretation of the hackneyed classics, as well as consistent in its execution. Sea Harbour in the city of Rosemead meets both criteria with flying colors. A longtime favorite of dim sum connoisseurs, Sea Harbour is located in an isolated stretch of Rosemead Boulevard across from a vacant lot. Neither the higher prices nor the inconvenient...
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Note: I just received this email from one of the most serious eaters I know, Steve Trost. Steve was in Toronto and had some serious dim sum. Tell us, Torontonians, did Steve find a winner? He certainly had me salivating. Did he miss anything? —EL In Toronto—see below. At Lai Wah Heen. No carts. All made fresh to order. Add to the list below (after the jump) an amazing sticky rice dumpling with crab meat and equally awesome steamed lobster dumpling stuffed with shrimp and finely diced veg with garlic and butter.There is nothing close in NYC in my eating experience. They also have a gourmet dim sum tasting but only for two at $45 per head, but I managed...
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I had to do a double-take when I saw this photo of a steamed mini crab dumpling in Renée Suen's Flickr. I've seen some creatively shaped dim sum in my life, but never a pink dumpling in the shape of a crab, complete with pincers, a speckled "shell," and black sesame seed eyes. Renée says that the dumpling was filled with fresh crab meat, shrimp mousse, and vegetable sprouts. To get your own pink baby crab dumpling go to Lai Wah Heen in Toronto. Related Photo of the Day: Little Dumpling Photo of the Day: Giant Soup Dumpling...
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Dim sum in these parts has basically jumped the shark. While we’re no Vancouver or San Francisco, we have a couple of really solid options, Phoenix and Shui Wah. Problem is like every brunch spot in the city, they’re so popular, you usually spend more time getting jostled by other fanny pack clad patrons waiting for a seat in the lobby than you do eating. As a result, my dim sum consumption is pretty much in line with my green leafy vegetable consumption, which is to say, pretty much zero. Last Sunday, though, I pulled myself out of bed, won the culinary lotto, and found myself with only a five-minute wait at Shui Wah. Shui Wah is home to...
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Crispy lamb filets with chili cumin from Szechuan Gourmet. Photograph taken by Kathryn Yu Wall Street Journal food writer Raymond Sokolov poses this very question as he decries the dearth of both high-quality, high-end Chinese restaurants in America and contemporary non-Chinese chefs in American kitchens who rarely look to China for inspiration. Is he right? I have an opinion, but I'm sure many other serious eaters do as well....
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Food blogger Maki Ito's Far East–Easter mashup: Putting Easter and dim sum together, I devised these bunny shaped bao, or steamed buns. (The inspiration for the shape came from a pair of fluffy white bunny slippers I saw at a flea market last summer.) They are quite simple really: tender steamed bun dough is filled and formed into an oval, and the ears are cut with scissors. Ito filled these steamed buns with a mixture of egg, bacon, and chives....
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"Consider the jellyfish salad or sesame jellyfish. It’s a cold dish. Very simple to prepare. You can get all of the ingredients to make it including the jellyfish at any well-supplied Chinese grocery store." Eddie Lin of Deep End Dining gives you a recipe for jellyfish salad, which sounds and looks weird but is delicious in a simultaneously sweet and salty, crunchy and slippery kind of way. Make the recipe but feel free to skip his sneaky final step—introducing it to the unwary by disguising it in a Peanut Butter and Jellyfish sandwich!...
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In this episode of Table for Two,
Curb Your Enthusiasm's Susie Essman has lunch with
Vogue food critic Jeffrey Steingarten. Essman reveals her cannot-eat-list, which Steingarten, when handed the menu, ignores.
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