The 7 worst dim sum dishes to order. How many do you agree with?
- Giant soup dumplings, dace fish balls and steamed beef balls all made a Hong Kong food group’s unofficial list of the worst dim sum dishes to order
- While I agree with some – and could add several more – I think that the problem is often in the execution and not the dish itself
A few weeks ago the Post published a feature, video and podcast about Hong Kong’s disappearing dim sum, where my colleagues and I extolled the virtues of quail’s egg siu mai, old-school ma lai go, and giant soup dumplings.
Barely a week later, a fevered discussion on the “Hong Kong Dim Sum Concern Group” – one of many social media forums dedicated to the appreciation of a single food – came up with a list of the seven worst dim sum to order.
On the list were both ma lai go and giant soup dumplings.
The former is outrageously maligned, given that people only included it because they complained about how they’re always too full to finish the soft, fluffy cake at the end of a meal.
While simple on the surface, a quality ma lai go requires know-how when it comes to how long to ferment the dough starter so that the cake has a lovely aroma and light-as-air texture with telltale air bubbles. In this sense, a quality ma lai go is more akin to sourdough bread than a typical steamed or baked cake.
These days, the common short cut is to amp up the baking soda to get a similar rise – at the expense of flavour.
As for soup dumplings, their place on the list was more to do with the perceived difficulty in sharing them – as the name suggests, the giant soup dumpling is more than a little cumbersome, and impossible to divide into portions.
In fact, another name given to the giant soup dumpling is the “selfish dumpling”. It seems that members of the group would rather forgo the dumplings altogether than appear to be self-centred.
What else? There were dace fish balls, which can often be prepared poorly – fine bones are a common complaint, but a muddy undertone is the primary caveat of dim sum connoisseurs.
Steamed beef balls with bean curd sheets were also on the chopping block, with people citing an unpleasant soapy flavour from the meatballs. Personally, I don’t rate the almost artificially smooth texture of the meat, either.
Top of the list – which I am also in agreement with – was the all-too-often disappointing fun gwo, or Chiuchow-style dumplings. The delicate skins, which should be chewy and translucent, are too frequently oversteamed, creating claggy, soggy dumplings that fall apart at the touch of your chopsticks, with the pieces then proceeding to stick to everything.
Also hated among the dim sum concern group? Stuffed “three treasures” – normally vegetables filled with a mixture of minced fish and pork and then fried – which are better on the street anyway; and water chestnut cake, a nostalgic pudding that can get too oily when pan-fried.
I’d be tempted to add a few more to that list, though it gives me no pleasure to do so, such as ham sui gok – fried glutinous rice dumplings that are greasy and underfilled most of the time.
While I love pan-fried turnip cake, often what you get are spotty crusts and oily, soggy cake. That’s because it takes time and effort to make; in a busy dim sum restaurant, it’s a big ask to expect the kitchen to lovingly tend to the wok to get that perfect golden-brown crust.
Cheung fun used to be one of my must-orders, but so few places now are able to produce a thin and slippery rice flour sheet, and more often than not the few pieces of prawn enrobed in its layers taste muddy and unpleasant.
A safer bet for both turnip cake and cheung fun, if available, are the versions stir-fried with XO sauce – after all, what can’t be improved by a bit of spice, umami and the Maillard reaction?
