Dim Sum in Denver?

[pumpkiny]

Any recommendations for dim sum in Denver?

I am a recent Boston transplant, and am having problems finding decent Chinese food in the area...but I am resetting my expectations...

Edited July 11, 2004 by pumpkiny (log)

[afoodnut]

Welcome to Colorado and the hidden southwest on egullet, pumpkiny.

You're well on your way to discovering a sad truth of Denver dining; great Chinese is missing. Here are a few threads where we talked about it: Here, here, and here.

There were some other threads that picked up the theme, that I didn't find in a quick search, but maybe some of the other Denver/Boulderites will remember where they are and post the links.

edit to add: Vietnamese food along south federal is one of denver's great food treasures. Check out this thread. Our next egullet gathering is happening at Dalat, on south federal on July 24; join us if you're interested.

Edited July 12, 2004 by afoodnut (log)

[Partyman]

I highly recommend Kings Land on Alameda near Federal. Until I tried Kings Land, the Empress was my favorite with the place in the Far East Center an also-ran. One thing that makes Kings Land a bit different from some dim sum places (such as those in the SF Bay Area - I grew up eating at places like Asia Garden in San Francisco and Jade Villa in Oakland) is that the carts carrying savory dishes hit you all at once at the start and you have a bit of a respite for a while. The range is comparable to what you'd find in the Bay Area: duck/chicken feet, garlic spare ribs, sticky rice with sausage and salt egg wrapped in a banana leaf, thousand year old egg congee, steamed and baked pork buns, har gow, turnip cake, etc. Their dinners are quite good as well - steamed Pacific oysters with black bean sauce and a bargain hot pot where you cook meat and seafood at your table for $15 a person.

[saltedgreens]

I have heard Kings land is great also. I have been to Empress and liked it too. Also on Alameda just west of Federal on the south side is a small restaurant of which I only visited once and liked it a lot. I forget the name though. It is something like: "_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _" (smile)

Maybe they are past their prime now but Ocean City on Missippi and Federal was very good.

[mongo_jones]

http://63.147.65.175/peaks/dimsum00.htm

has anyone been here? king's land left me cold--mee yee lin was better but limited and small. haven't tried empress yet.

as tempting as the thought is of making people drive to boulder for the next egull outing, i'm tempted by the thought of doing dim sum instead. should be cheaper and allow for a greater variety of order customization. but in any case can't do an outing till the end of september--august and the first half of september are going to be a little crazy for us.

[colestove]

Sorry to burst your bubble. Golden Plate has been out of business for some time, the location has been several different things,(none of them anywhere near as good). The scuttlebut was the couple that owned the place broke up and there went the restaurant. I never had dim sum there but I ate there several times both dinner and lunch. For this non "Chinese" food eater it was very good and several Chinese people I know liked it as well. Dim Sum sounds good for us for the next meeting.

colestove

[AmyH]

We are totally up for dim sum . . there's always chili paste oil on the table for mongo, Mr. AmyH, rlm and afoodnut's daughter to knock themselves out. Heck, we may even bring the petite filles so my son can gross everyone out by gnawing on chickent feet.

[mongo_jones]

mrs. jones and i will likely have sampled empress whatever and ocean city by the end of the month. if people are willing to trust our picks we can make a recommendation then. or we can go with whichever place someone who is an expert on the local dim sum scene recommends. as long as it isn't king's land.

edit to add: and by all means bring the kids--will be good to have company on the chicken feet. mmmm fatty and gelatinous,

Edited July 30, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[pepperedpalate]

Empress! Empress! I vote for Empress!

By the way, Mongo, The Golden Plate was sensational for dim sum. Before Elliott was born, Stephen and I used to go there every single weekend. Sigh...I miss it. But the Empress is convivial, chaotic, cavernous, and in my opinion, far better than King's Land or Mee Yee Lin, both of which I can take or leave. Then again, King's Land almost got its dumplings kicked right out of the car park for a fucking Walmart -- and that would have utterly and completely sucked.

Ocean City is the real thing. So is Jay Jay's, also on Federal. I know, I know, it doesn't sound remotely Chinese, but trust me on this one.

[afoodnut]

If I remember the conversation at Da Lat correctly, Fred and his wife reported they had wonderful dim sum at Empress recently. And in any case, the delightful company will make it an adventure to remember.

[rlm]

Dim sum sounds good to me. I am up for trying some chicken feet! Cluck, cluck.

"A must have for all chicken music collectors!" WTF?!

Edited July 31, 2004 by rlm (log)

[fredbram]

We did, in fact, enjoy dim sum at Empress recently. Not West Coast quality (or selection) but very good for Denver.

[AmyH]

I have friends that rave about Ocean City . . if they have cart dim sum, it should be considered along with Empress. Now I'm hungry . . we are thinking September -ish?

[AmyH]

Mmmm Empress. We went today for dim sum. Because the place is so big, even arriving at noon (yeah, we were really lazing around this morning) did not present more than a five minute wait. What I like about Empress is the combination of carts and ordering off of the menu which is nicely translated into an English that I can understand. The carts come by and the servers do a very nice job of explaining everything on the cart (even to the stupid American who seem unlikely to order chicken or duck feet, but do anyway) and if your favorite item does not come around fast enough or you don't see it, you can mark it down of the menu and an "expediter" person will come along, look at your order form and either run to the kitchen to bring out the dish or flag down the cart that it is on. In this way, we were able to get our shu mai, quail egg with pork dumplings, those great rice noodle crepes with shrimp and pork, har gao, deep fried beef turnovers (does anyone know how they get the shell of the turnover to be so deliciously sweet ), great steamed prok buns, stuffed mushroom caps, and because we could, a steaming plate of beef chow fun with vegetables. Oh, and the egg custard buns for dessert that our kids are sampling in every dim sum place they go to to find the champion (so far Phoenix in Chicago is the sentimental favorite).

Delicious And there were so many other dishes coming out of the kitchen that I would have liked to try . . the duck and shrimp dishes looked fantastic that I say when is egullet going to Empress? Oh yeah, the total bill for four stuffed people was 41 including tax and tip, as I think it always is ever single time I go to dim sum anywhere. Dates for Sundays in December anyone?

[afoodnut]

Dates for Sundays in December anyone?

December? After that report? Waiting so long?

We're wide open in December... but I'd guess that for most, December is the hardest month to not end up with a conflict, and conflicts of the type that even if we plan ahead, an egullet gathering would have to fall by the wayside. How about October or November?

[colestove]

I thought after the middle of Sept. was the tentative choice. The sooner the better after that great review.

colestove

[mongo_jones]

yeah--what's all this december business amy? or do you only go for dim sum once evey 4 months?

actually if it wasn't for the fact that we went to dalat for the 2nd outing i'd suggest going for pho for the third. cheap, multifarious, ideal for conviviality (is that even a word?). but it would be a quick meal--however, we could follow it up with ice-cream. much as i love dimsum i'm not sure about the feasibility of 12-16 people eating it together at the same table.

by the way, while at the far east center yesterday i realized that i haven't actually been to mee yee lin; the place i was confusing it with is china jade. shows you how forgettable our first two dim sum experiences in denver were--couldn't even remember the names of the restaurants.

[AmyH]

LOL it was a slip of the fingers. . I could have sworn I wrote September. September, September, September. I was distracted by the nine year old who wanted to add every smiley face she could to the post. . .

I think dim sum with a crowd will not be a problem. The positives are that we can keep ordering food as we go so we don't have the over/under problem of guessing how much people will eat, we can also order more "larger" dishes, like a plate or two of duck or other items and even those come out quick enough that we can start with one and add another. We will not have the drinker/non-drinker problem, so we should finally be able to just split the bill (that would be a welcome change). There were lots of round tables for big groups in the back. I did not check to see if they had large lazy susans or not. The last time we went to dim sum in Chicago, we ewre a group of 14 and had our own room with a big table and a large lazy susan. Except fo having to keep the kids at the table from sending the dishes around at a frenetic pace . .it worked out really well and was alot of fun.

And I should add for dim sum experts, while Empress is very, very fresh and good, it is still not as highly seasoned as you would find in other cities. The dishes are mild, not in terms of heat, but in terms of overall flaovers . They could stand to ratchet up the use of ginger, scallions and other traditional seasonings. Just a fair warning.

Flori will know when "the Holidays" are in September. We are out the weekend of September 11 as a certain insane husband is running the Imogene Pass race from Ouray to Telluride.

Edited August 9, 2004 by AmyH (log)

[afoodnut]

Flori will know when "the Holidays" are in September. We are out the weekend of September 11 as a certain insane husband is running the Imogene Pass race from Ouray to Telluride.

Insane husband running imogene pass will need lots of food to recover...

"Holidays" won't interfere; Rosh Hashana starts Wednesday evening, 9/15; Thursday, Friday 9/16, 9/17; Yom Kippur starts friday evening, 9/24; Saturday 9/25.

So, it looks like possible dates are Sunday, September 19; Sunday, September 26; Sunday, October 3; Sunday, October 10; you recognize the pattern.

Chime in with comments.

[mongo_jones]

Flori will know when "the Holidays" are in September.  We are out the weekend of September 11 as a certain insane husband is running the Imogene Pass race from Ouray to Telluride.

Insane husband running imogene pass will need lots of food to recover...

"Holidays" won't interfere; Rosh Hashana starts Wednesday evening, 9/15; Thursday, Friday 9/16, 9/17; Yom Kippur starts friday evening, 9/24; Saturday 9/25.

So, it looks like possible dates are Sunday, September 19; Sunday, September 26; Sunday, October 3; Sunday, October 10; you recognize the pattern.

Chime in with comments.

are saturdays ruled out completely? monday mornings will be rough for us starting in 2 weeks and while we would do a sunday outing if saturdays won't work for others we'd prefer dim summing on a saturday.

[AmyH]

Now it is my turn to be puzzled . . what is the correlation between dim sum on Sunday morning and your busy schedule on Monday morning?

We are kind of stuck on Sundays . . Saturdays in September and October = football games for #1 son. . . anyone for 10/3 ?? Mongo, we'll drive you and Mrs. Mongo and have you back in Boulder by 2:30 or 3:00 at the latest. Should give you time to get ready for Monday morning.

Where is everyone else on this topic.

[afoodnut]

Is it my mistake? I never knew dim sum could be any time other than Sunday, kind of like bagels and lox...

Edited August 9, 2004 by afoodnut (log)

[mongo_jones]

Now it is my turn to be puzzled . . what is the correlation between dim sum on Sunday morning and your busy schedule on Monday morning?

We are kind of stuck on Sundays . . Saturdays in September and October = football games for #1 son. . . anyone for 10/3 ?? Mongo, we'll drive you and Mrs. Mongo and have you back in Boulder by 2:30 or 3:00 at the latest. Should give you time to get ready for Monday morning.

Where is everyone else on this topic.

i'm on a m-w-f schedule this semester, as is mrs. jones. however, unlike mrs. jones i tend to not do any of my prep work for the coming week till sunday rolls around. but we'll do sunday--that's the kind of easygoing people we are.

10/3 is probably going to be bad--we'd prefer sunday, sep 26.

and afoodnut, i'm not sure what the story is with the denver dim sum houses but usually dim sum is a daily affair. in los angeles weekdays are less crowded than weekends and saturdays less crowded than sundays (some sort of church correlation). however, i don't know if there is enough of a demand in denver to support daily, full-variety dimsum.

[afoodnut]

and afoodnut, i'm not sure what the story is with the denver dim sum houses but usually dim sum is a daily affair. in los angeles weekdays are less crowded than weekends and saturdays less crowded than sundays (some sort of church correlation). however, i don't know if there is enough of a demand in denver to support daily, full-variety dimsum.

Sorry, my "only on sunday" was tongue in cheek (or should I say chicken foot in stomach?). And bagels and lox can actually be eaten on other days of the week as well, but, you know, there's...tradition.

[rlm]

Sept. 26th is bad for me. Saturdays are preferable to Sundays in general.