The best 5 dishes of Dim Sum

Here is a list of the most essential items to pick at a dim sum meal. As long as we hit the Big Five, we know we're good......


Har gow 蝦餃
The shrimp dumpling, har gow, is arguably the king of dim sum. It is the dish against which a dim sum restaurant's worth is weighed.

Or it should be. These days, gimmicky new dim sum inventions distract the jaded diner. Why eat a har gow when you can have a lobster dumpling decked with gold foil and shaped like a swan?

But a classic is a classic and the har gow always makes it to the dim sum table even if its taken for granted.

The best kind should have a wrapper that has been folded at least seven times to demonstrate the dexterity of the chef. The wrapper should be translucent, showing the pink glow of shrimp inside it.

At the best tables, the filling is made with fresh, sweet shrimp mixed with finely chopped bamboo shoots for a crunchy dimension.

Dip in chili sauce if that's your thing and try to wait for everyone to have a piece before going for seconds.




Siu mai 燒賣
If har gow is the king, siu mai is the queen.

This is a crowd-pleasing dumpling, and one of the most versatile.

Tracing its roots to the Mongols, the siu mai is now interpreted in every Province in China.

But it's the Cantonese siu mai that is world famous, due to the global footprint of Cantonese diaspora as well as due to its deliciousness.

Essentially a meatball, the Cantonese siu mai is made with pork, roughly chopped to give it texture, topped with shrimp and roe of some sort, all cupped in a wheat wrapper. It should be small, about two-bites sized.

It is so popular that locals buy it from street stalls for a on-the-go snack. These street siu mai are skewered like kebabs and doused in soy sauce and chili oil. They are usually made from fish paste and taste different from restaurant siu mai.




Cha siu bao 叉燒包
There's the traditional cha siu bao made of white Chinese buns steamed in a bamboo basket.

It appeals to the sweet tooth that every Cantonese is born with and showcases the barbecue pork that Cantos are famous for.

It has modern variations. The baked cha siu bao has a yellowish bread casing and a sticky glaze, but with the same sweet barbecue pork filling.

If there was an official rulebook on dim sum eating, it would tell us to eat cha siu bao towards the end of the meal.

It's rather sweet, like dessert, and rather filling, so save it for after the dumplings.




Phoenix talons 鳳爪
Chicken feet really are an essential dim sum dish.

Euphemized as "phoenix talons," chicken feet have never gone out of style.

No family Sunday dim sum meal is complete without the sight of grandma carefully working her mouth muscles around a chicken foot, then lowering her head -- but not her chopsticks -- to spit out the miniscule bones.

Kids love it too as the chicken feet are usually smothered in a strong-flavored sauce of black bean paste and sugar.

And for out-of-towners new to Cantonese food, a basket of phoenix talons are a great conversation starter and a challenge to their sense of adventure.

Our favorite is the abalone sauce chicken feet. These are slow-cooked and never deep-fried beforehand, unlike the traditional kind.




Cheung fun 腸粉
These slippery morsels are made from thin sheets of steamed rice noodle. It is often served with meat or vegetables rolled up inside layers of rice sheets then doused in soy sauce.

But the most basic kind of cheung fun is served plain, with some peanut and hoisin sauce and a generous sprinkle of sesame seeds.

These pearl-white tubes taste very mildly of rice -- more like a memory of the rice that it once was.

But cheung fun are the perfect vehicle for sauce, and that is primarily the function of rice flavor, to serve as a canvas.

It's Chinese name can be roughly translated to "cloth peeling cheung fun." It is made by spreading rice slurry on cloth, steaming it until firm, then deftly peeling it away.

                       Emm....yummy !