Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Dim Sum, yum!

Last weekend, a few friends and I went for dim sum in Chinatown. If you've never been before, dim sum is a traditional Chinese brunch featuring dumplings and other bite-sized dishes. Typically, food items are wheeled around in carts and diners point at things that they'd like to try. It's sort of hectic and better suited for more adventurous eaters, because a lot of the items are not easily identified by non-Asians. "Sure, I'll take that mysterious leaf-wrapped packet. What's that jiggly white thing? Oh, a coconut dessert? Yes, please!" We arrived at China Pearl, one of the more well-known dim sum establishments in Boston's Chinatown, sat down at our table in a crowded room, and immediately began ordering. Since I was with a large group, we were able to try a bunch of different items- I was a big fan of the tasty balls. The shrimp ball contained a mixture of shrimp and lychee, breaded and deep-fried. The sesame ball was more of a dessert- some sort of rice dough filled with sweat red bean paste and coated in sesame seeds. Sounds weird, tastes delicious. Here are some photos from our dim sum trip, and you may observe my sneaky habit of pretending to use chopsticks but really just eating items with my hands. Busted!
Anyways, this was the first time I've had dim sum in Boston (my only other experience had been in NYC's Chinatown) and I highly enjoyed it. Maybe if I ask nicely they'll let me push one of the carts around next time.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

you are so white. ;) did you try fung zao. it's chicken feet--it's marinated in black bean sauce and steamed. it's good but you have to get use to the texture. my favorite dessert is Dou fu fa--soupy tofu in sweet ginger syrup.

yumz.

eileen said...

Nope, no chicken feet! I'll have to try them next time, but I will confess that the ginger dessert sounds more appealing to me :)

Anonymous said...

Just look at my DNA using chopsticks. We've come a long way from picking potatoes haven't we.