Whenever the subject of dim sum comes up on The Food Show I always say that in New Orleans we really don’t have that. High populations of Asians and just high populations in general are required for such things. I eat dim sum on the west coast, where it is fantastic. Usually, I eat it at Din Tai Fung, a Michelin restaurant, and deservedly so.
But we have also liked Yank Sing, a place in San Francisco with two locations, both downtown. Tom first experienced it many years ago, and took the family in 2017. It was fantastic, and fantastically expensive. Yank Sing is a swanky place with a large dim sum menu of expertly crafted dishes, offered by excellent sales people.
We left our California idyll from San Francisco, but not before stopping in at Yank Sing. Even though it was not as good as I remember, I’m glad we went, mainly to show pics of what I call “real” dim sum.
As soon as you sit down, a cart arrives at the table. It is overloaded with little baskets of things. You are looking at a large menu but it is not necessary. All you have to do is talk to one of these salespeople who are happy to explain each dish, and to give you one.
We ordered Shumai, the shrimp dumpling, and soup dumplings, some pot stickers and chicken spring rolls. There were lots of things on different carts and we should have coordinated better. (And brought more people!) And we got some fried rice, because ML wanted more food but she doesn’t eat seafood. Most of these dumplings were at least partially seafood, as was the fried rice.
I have no idea why she ordered Shumai because they are pork and shrimp. At Din Tai Fung these are expertly made. This version had whole shrimp and mushrooms in them and were just not very good.
She also felt that way about the steamed pot stickers, and I agree. The fried spring rolls filled with chicken and vegetables were great and so were the soup dumplings. We were completely underwhelmed by the fried rice, which didn’t even look very good.
We didn’t bother getting the vegetables here, because we could see they were not even in the same ballpark as Din Tai Fung. We’re spoiled and get several orders of simple broccoli and string beans there. Here the vegetables came with things like dried shrimp in it. A little too "authentic" for us. There were things on that cart for only the Asians who knew them. For us, scary.
If I hadn't been so full I would have gotten the lemon tart for dessert, or the seeded donut-like dessert. Both were beautiful. But the carts are almost circling the table when you sit down and everything looks good and you just start ordering. Then you realize you have ordered too much. This is a style of eating made for more than two, or even four people.
Yank Sing is a fancy Chinese place with really professional servers in professional attire with electronic devices attached so they can communicate between tables, sending carts of desired items to the tables desiring them. Extra levels of efficiency. This is all fascinating to watch, and the speed at which it all takes place is daunting.
Dim Sum is a fun way to eat Chinese food, and it’s a special kind of food. And at a place like Yank Sing, it’s more than just food. It’s an interesting experience.
