Dim Sum

[Joe Blowe]

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo...ll=la-home-food

We live in the dim sum capital of the country.

That's right. Dim sum — that whole Cantonese way of life, or at least of lunch, with its endless parade of hot dumplings wheeled around a roaring dining room in flocks of burnished carts — has firmly established itself over the last 20 years here in the Southland, which is where the best dim sum in the country can now be found. More specifically, it's found in the San Gabriel Valley, home to the nation's largest Chinese community, nearly a quarter of a million people.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo...ll=la-home-food

Navigating dim sum menus at restaurants without carts can seem tricky for those accustomed to simply pointing to what looks good and continuing to order and eat until satisfied. If there is a menu, is it best to order in flights? Or should you order everything at once but count on the restaurant to handle the pacing?

[rjwong]

Joe,

After reading the LA Times and trying to summarize it for this week's food digest (Jan. 26, 2005), it was a real revelation to me.

I say this because I grew up eating dim sum the old Cantonese way, with Chinese ladies pushing these steel carts stacked with round silver trays of har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings), siu mai (steamed pork dumplings), etc... , all inside these noisy and busy restaurants a generation or two ago. Actually, I usually stand in line at this old Chinese deli in downtown LA and order what dim sum I want and take them back to the office and eat.

And now, dim sum is being taken out of my comfort zone. The envelope is being pushed. It's definitely NOT my father's dim sum. Am I willing to try these new places, like this "New Concept"?

Sure, I'll try them. Are you willing to try some tripe and some jellyfish?

[MaxH]

Seems like a recent explosion in LA (a region known for rapid changes, and flourishing restaurant scenes). Prior to that "20-year" boom, the prominent Cantonese-émigré community in the US had been, for the previous 135 years, in San Francisco (see famous trivia in quotation below). There, the bustling carts in the thousand-seat tea houses were a way of life, emulated in some other communities as time went by. (At the venerable Canton Tea House in SF, one of the heated carts exploded 20 or 25 years ago, from its portable butane tank, but otherwise the dim sum houses were a low-key institution.)

In Hong Kong (surely the world capital for such tea meals) the definition of what is edible is broader than you usually see even in cosmopolitan dim-sum restaurants in the US. (Tripe and jellyfish are fancy bourgeois stuff by Chinese dim-sum standards …)

--Max

--

In the United States legal measures against drug abuse were first established in 1875, when opium dens were outlawed in San Francisco.

- Harris and Levey, Eds., The New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975).

[Joe Blowe]

I showed that article to my wife, and she just laughed and muttered an Aiyah! She's ABC (American Born Cantonese, that is), and she's most comfortable in the 888/Ocean Star/Empress realm. Anything outside of that is just showing off.

Now I must admit, I think she and her family are stuck in a Chinese food rut. What used to be adventurous to me (mysterious cold appetizers, tripe, fish stomach soup ) has become routine. I'm always looking to expand my horizons, but if I'm ever going to see the inside of New Concept, it won't be with the in-laws...

Getting back to the article, I'm not so sure that the "discerning immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan" are the only ones fueling this wave of innovative dim sum. My personal opinion/observation is that it's the rice-rocket-driving-ABC-kids, JOJ-kids driving daddy's Lexus, people who know about eGullet and that other place, etc. There is a nouveau aspect to all of this that does make me want to stay away until the smoke has cleared.

I'm rambling. I need coffee.

[chefzadi]

Joe,

After reading the LA Times and trying to summarize it for this week's food digest (Jan. 26, 2005), it was a real revelation to me.

I say this because I grew up eating dim sum the old Cantonese way, with Chinese ladies pushing these steel carts stacked with round silver trays of har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings), siu mai (steamed pork dumplings), etc... , all inside these noisy and busy restaurants a generation or two ago. Actually, I usually stand in line at this old Chinese deli in downtown LA and order what dim sum I want and take them back to the office and eat.

And now, dim sum is being taken out of my comfort zone. The envelope is being pushed. It's definitely NOT my father's dim sum. Am I willing to try these new places, like this "New Concept"?

Sure, I'll try them. Are you willing to try some tripe and some jellyfish?

←

My wife wants to know which dim sum place you go to. She goes to the bakery next to Ai Hoa market for Vietnamese sandwiches. She's gotten her whole family addicted to them. Her aunt used to take her to a dim sum place when she was little, but she can't remember where.

[rjwong]

My wife wants to know which dim sum place you go to. She goes to the bakery next to Ai Hoa market for Vietnamese sandwiches. She's gotten her whole family addicted to them. Her aunt used to take her to a dim sum place when she was little, but she can't remember where.

←

I go to CBS Seafood that's located on N. Spring St. & Ord St. It's up the block from Philippe's.

Mind you, when I have friends who haven't tried dim sum, I introduce them to Empress Pavilion, which is located up Hill St. from Ai Hoa market. It's on the right side of Hill St. (same as Ai Hoa) on the second floor, the last building on the right before you go on the 110 on-ramp.

[MaxH]

There is a nouveau aspect to all of this that does make me want to stay away until the smoke has cleared.

←

The following side point, to the good information in these articles, may not interest every dim sum fan. But the opening assertions in the first article are of a form to raise red flags to the occasional reader who actually is interested in their points, and who reads modern food journalism:

We live in the dim sum capital of the country. ... where the best dim sum in the country can now be found. ... we don't just have the most dim sum, we have the hippest, hottest dim sum — the most sophisticated and creative in the U.S.

If any of that is actually true -- and it may be! -- it would be helpful if the authors showed it. (There's no serious comparison with anywhere else in the US -- so we have only conclusions from no data, giving it a marketing-speak look. Not a look of high respect for the reader.)

Not exactly unique to this article, of course. This is routine on Internet forums also. "Such-and-such is clearly the best Pho restaurant in town" with no hint that the author has seen any other. (When such writers do know what they are talking about, it would be helpful if they shared that with us!)

Sorry, I'm rambling also. -- Max