Before “small plates” became a trendy way to eat American food, little portions of Chinese food were delighting diners in population centers larger than New Orleans.
But eventually we get everything, and dim sum arrived here first at the Royal China on Veterans Highway, creating the same sensation it had everywhere else in America. In recent years though, dim sum has turned up in a few other places in New Orleans. You’ll find dim sum at Little Chinatown in Kenner, and Dian Xian, a slightly hipper version of the Kenner restaurant run by members of the same family.
My personal benchmark for dim sum is Yank Sing in San Francisco, a large, beautiful and insanely busy restaurant in an unlikely place. On the ground floor of a skyscraper in the financial district, the restaurant takes advantage of a large outdoor space which provides seating and waiting areas for the hordes usually waiting at least an hour.
What’s all the fuss about? Dim sum is fun. At a place like Yank Sing, it is delicious too. Each patron is provided a sheet of all available items, usually a small dish of 3 or 4 little bites like shrimp toast, spring rolls, dumplings, and spareribs, plus a hundred or so more. The diner simply fills in a number of portions for each dish in a box by the name. Done traditionally, carts laden with these items are wheeled around the dining room and portions of the order are delivered to tables. What make it fun is that sometimes waiters “encourage” more purchases. Orders and deliveries overlap, often frenetically. Before long, it is all gone, the table must be turned, and a shocking bill is presented. Just like with sushi, the expression, “it all adds up” comes to mind.
The dim sum experience I had at our own Royal China is nothing like I just described. Instead of a happy buzz of people in a large dining room, workmen and shoppers amble into this worn, smallish and dark Chinese restaurant whose glory days are long gone.
Depressed-looking fish crowd each other in a thankfully clean but too-small fish tank. We sat at the table next to the tank, offering uncomfortably close views of this sad Chinese restaurant fixture.
The most impressive thing about this experience was the china centerpieces on the tables, colorful fancy teapots holding soy sauce, hot mustard, and a sweet sauce.
I quickly filled out the sheet and as usual got carried away ordering. Nearly everything I ordered was shrimp, because I would never order crabmeat in a Chinese restaurant anyway, but especially not with current prices.
Little dishes began to arrive. Two shrimp spring rolls, fried. And order of three shrimp toast, which were very different from the last two versions of this I have recently had other places.The shrimp were not so much a part of the mixture, but were set atop the mixture and covered with sesame seeds. They were curled nicely and cooked enough, but I was underwhelmed by this. This was one of the best things on the table, but that doesn’t mean it was good.
Between the first part of the order and the second, I added a combo fried rice. And after eating some of this, I tried to cancel the remainder of the order with no luck.
The second batch of mediocre dishes arrived. The spring rolls were also just okay, but oddly consisted of a shrimp filling which appeared to be mashed shrimp only. Still, it’s hard to find a fried and filled wonton wrapper that doesn’t have at least something going for it.
The fried rice appeared next, and its most distinctive characteristic was…bulk. There was a lot of rice here, and it was studded with a lot of things. It had no discernable flavor, though, and the pork chunks were chewy, which pork should never be. It’s hard to make fried rice unredeemable, but this was.
There was a dish of chicken dumplings which were also supposed to be fried, but they didn’t look like it. They would have been much better deep fried, because the pan-frying made absolutely no statement. These were also underwhelming.
And then the very best, and the worst, arrived at the table. Asian spareribs are sometimes sliced very thin, and I mean the actual bones. I find this very unappealing, bordering on disturbing, imagining the kind of saw needed to cut across a bone like that. There were two morsels of indistinguishable meat, one on each side of this tiny slither of bone. Technically garlic spareribs, there was plenty of garlic flavor, as well as garlic. While the flavor of this wasn’t nearly as horrible as it looked, it wasn’t good either. This would be where cultural differences are stark. Americans would never order something like this.
There was one thing on the table I actually liked. Eggplant is one of the last things I’m inclined to eat, so I wouldn’t ordinarily order this. It was billed as a shrimp fried eggplant. The idea of yet another fried thing on this table was mildly alarming, but at least it was a little different. The eggplant was thin-sliced and really soft. This was topped with shrimp, though I don’t see where the fried aspect came in. Under the eggplant was a sauce that was really quite nice.
To fully understand my level of interest in this meal, the following point is essential: I looked at the table at all the food we ordered, so little of it eaten, and very nearly decided to walk away without boxing up any of it. This never happens. But I wasn’t going to eat it. Tom wasn’t going to eat it. I didn’t want the dog to eat it. Enter our daughter’s boyfriend, who is highly indiscriminate about food. He summed it up perfectly, after finishing it off. He said, “It’s good for bad Chinese food.”
Exactly.
