The Dim Sum Project

by thedishandthedirt on February 27, 2012

Welcome to a brand new segment of The Dish & The Dirt! Shockingly, aside from the dining out that I post about here, I actually still eat out elsewhere. Usually, the places I don’t post about are my actual favorites — places I go to so often that it doesn’t even make sense to have a camera. Well, when Hong Kong Lounge II opened up nearby (read here for all my dirty details), I decided to make you all part of my Dim Sum Project. So here’s the first installment of The Dim Sum Project, aka, Dina vs. the dim sum menu (if you’re betting on the big horse — me — then you should know I’ve been training all my life for this moment).

To knock off a few dishes:

Beef short rib. Gailan with oyster sauce (Chinese broccoli).Xiao long bao (steamed pork dumplings). Tip, eat this with a soup spoon if you can, otherwise you’re just going to poke it and waste all the juices inside. If you don’t have a spoon, don’t break the skin with your chopsticks. Bring it all carefully to your mouth, break a hole with your teeth and suck. Enticing, I know. But breaking that skin is a rookie mistake. And all the old Chinese people will laugh at you…well, not really…they’ll just make fun of you in Cantonese.Fried egg puff. I used to call these butterflies when I was little because of the (questionable) resemblance. My mom brought them home from Phoenix Bakery in L.A.’s Chinatown, and I use to savor the edges where most of the honey glaze lay. Salt & pepper pi pa tofu.Deluxe rice noodle in clay pot. If you’re not a fan of liver, take a pass. My husband was really excited about the rice noodle, not so excited about the liver.Chasiu baos. These are the best pork buns I’ve had in San Francisco. There is no other place I know that does the top like this; rather than a honey glaze on top, it’s more like a sweet crumbly, cookie crust.

Well, there it is. Installment one. Since I wrote this post, I’ve already been back 3 or 4 times. I sometimes forget to take pictures. So I guess this is sort of like Dina vs. the dim sum menu II. I told you — I’m the big horse.