When dim sum feels wrong (Red Egg)

Note to self (and all): do not get the desiccated soup dumplings here

I think something that's come with me having a job, and by association not being a broke-as-shit graduate student, is that my perception of value has become skewed. When I first started writing 'My Inner Fatty,' I think there were few things that made it ever slightly more palatable than every other food blog on the internet. First - I was (and still am) a relatively huge idiot and this is kind of like one of those nature shows where you just know the gazelle is going to get fucked, but you keep watching thinking that maybe it'll outrun the lion... but it never does. Second - I was raised in an Asian household that valued holding onto money tighter than a sphincter during a Korean horror movie (hint hint... that's tight) so instead of being a mega douche-nozzle getting off sucking off the likes of Per Se and Daniel, I wrote about stupid shit like 5 for $1 dumplings. The last thing I had going for me was my stunning good looks, but only a select few of you know me well enough for that to be reason to read my blog. Kidding on that last one, sadly. Anyway, I feel like I should apologize. Back to the original point, I feel like my value per dollar is really messed up now that I have a job. I'm no longer championing sketchy ass sandwiches from drug-dealing delis, I'm taking fancy pants pictures of legit restaurants with grades like 'B,' sometimes even 'A.' Shit. That's messed up.

When I first started writing this post, I was going to talk about how pimp Red Egg's dim sum is - it takes a tried-and-true concept of classic Chinese afternoon dishes and combines that with booze, complete with a pseudo-fusion feel - but then I realized that, no... I don't like the model that they're trying to sell. They're trying too hard. I think most of it has to do with the fact that it feels out of place in Chinatown (with how modern the decor is...) and its location is kind of out of the way too, undoubtedly so the old school Asians don't flip a shit. Counter-intuitively, I give mad props to any restaurant that can stay afloat while dancing gently along the fine line that is hygiene, looking like absolute shit and mocking the DOH - Red Egg is basically the opposite of that. It feels as if they're selling me ambiance, not food. Regardless of how true that might be, first impressions are big, and that shiz don't gel with me. Plus I like the fact that those other places have old women that yell at me in Cantonese while pushing around little carts in those little apron numbers - that's kinda my thing. It makes it feel more homely and hectic (and erotic). You ain't gonna find that kind of sensual atmosphere at Red Egg. There will be no one yelling at you angrily to take their 'chicken feet' while eye-fucking you with the intensity of 1000 suns.

With all that said, it's pretty clear that I'm biased against this place. With that said, they do make pretty bitchin' cuisine. Since I'm something of a Chinese food connoisseur/moron - it's probably for the best for you to make up your own mind on whether or not you want to go.



Oh hai! It's shumai. Admittedly, it is hard to fuck up shumai, but theirs were tight. Sometimes you find places with pushcarts that keep their steamers on top of low heat for so damn long that the shumai skins get mushy, the meat starts sweating, and weird flavors from other dishes leech onto the small delicate flower of pork. While mixing of dim sum flavors sounds like an absolutely heavenly premise, it actually sucks - and their shumai suck. Not Red Egg's. Theirs are springy like an rubber band (but without the chemical taste!), with each squishy bite carrying unadulterated pork porn (at this point, I guess I should have realized why my blog keeps getting flagged for adult content, but I never seem to learn).



I actually have no clue what the fuck these things are. While they look like boring bricks of lightly browned rice cake, the glistening skin really hides a center of pork. I think a good rule of thumb in an Asian restaurant is - "if you have no clue what something is, the center is probably some combination of pork, shrimp, msg, and other shit you don't want to think about." Anyway, these discs of oil and meat are basically dumplings with uber thick rice flour skins flattened into a short and stout cylinder. The filling is as you would expect - that is to say, porcine - but the skin is actually pretty special. There's a certain snappiness to the texture, and a very deliberate sweetness that you don't get with the 'dead flour' you normally use for wonton or dumpling skins. Long story short, while these things look all pasty and white like Newt Gingrich, they taste all dark and sensual like a Barry White. That's not racist, you're racist if you think that's racist.



I'm not going to justify why I got these. Shit, I got two orders of this. Why? Because every roast pork bun is a good roast pork bun (and because I finished one of them myself). Admittedly, some are better than others, but Red Egg does pretty well here. The bun is pillowy soft and the roast pork is crispy, yet moist. Add in a generous helping of maltose syrup and it's pretty much game over. Know all those stupid Snickers commercials where they say people get cranky when they don't have a Snickers? Well I feel like if you gave Kim-Jong Un a roast pork bun from Red Egg, he'd mellow the fuck out too.



Cheung fun is another one of those dishes that you can't really go wrong with. You steam rice noodles, you wrap some delicious-ass junk inside, and boom - you have a culinary masterpiece that delights on texture and also flavor. Sometimes I wonder if I actually like eating rice noodle wraps, or if I just use it as an excuse to drink the sweetened soy sauce mixture that they bring out to the table. Then I realize it doesn't really matter. That last bit was a good story, I'm sure.



These fuckers are so good they don't even need to be filled with meat. That's coming from me, so you know that's gotta be true. Some people don't like cilantro (I've been told it's because it shares the same active chemical as is used in modern soap production) - that's totally cool. If you don't, this shit probably isn't your jam, but if you enjoy munching on bars of Irish Spring as much as I do, you'll fucking love this dish.



My friend showed up with a vegan. I'm sorry, but if you're vegan - dim sum is basically a huge Jackie Chan "mind is full of fuck" kind of thing. Why would you even bother rolling out of bed to go to a place where everything is probably rolled in pork fat before being brought to the table? Seriously. If you're curious how these tasted - the honest to god answer I can give you is, I have no freakin' clue. I go to dim sum to eat pork, not steamed grass. Anyway, I think what you should probably take away from this post is - Red Egg makes good food, that is undeniable. I hate the premise on which Red Egg operates - that it's hip, caters to non-Asians, and tries way too hard to be modern... and has good hygienic practices. You should go if you want to drink with your dim sum. You will never find me there. The End.

tl;dr - Red Egg is a dim sum restaurant that serves booze and is clean. That feels wrong, weird, and counter-intuitively... dirty to me. Their food is pretty sick though. Also, don't invite vegans to dim sum. It really brings down the mood all around.

Red Egg
202 Centre Street, New York, NY 10013
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Non-Asians and dim sum (Nom Wah Tea Parlor)

There's that saying, that you should never judge a book by it's cover. Like Twilight... which has a stupid-ass cover, but holds the depths of literary achievement like the world has never seen or experienced before. Kidding... or am I? Anyway, I generally feel like if an Asian restaurant is being frequented by a plurality of non-Asian folk, I should probably mosey the fuck on outta there. Not that I don't like a good serving of General Tso's chicken - I just don't want that when I'm seeking on legit homestyle shiz. Now, I realize this isn't really a fair generalization (when are generalizations ever fair anyway?), as there are a handfull of non-Asian food bloggers who clearly know their shit when it comes to cuisine from the Far East, but this as a general rule is pretty good to follow. Sometimes... there are exceptions. Nom Wah is truly a case where the number of white people isn't indicative of how authentic the food actually is.

Just a few years ago, Nom Wah was a true hole-in-the-wall type dim sum joint where the old guy in the back cared more about playing mahjong than service. By no means am I suggesting this is an awesome customer service model, but goddamn it was some OG cuisine. I knew whatever that bro pimped from his kitchen would be delicious and of questionable preparation methods. That's the kind of place I'm all about. Turns out... not everyone likes that style of management. The original establishment basically ran itself into the ground. In order to stay afloat, some random young guy stepped in and breathed new life into Nom Wah i.e. it "sold out" and transformed into a hip English-friendly establishment. I should be outraged... I mean, this place traded Asian street cred on account of greed! Yet I'm not. Why?

Because some of their food is actually pretty dope.



At first glance these might appear to be normal beef meatballs, but if you thought that... then you've been Chuck Testa'd. These are some next-level shit meatballs with a tofu skin wrapping. I've never understood why, but dim sum meatballs all have a certain citrusy flavor infused. Anyway, their version were decent - and I did enjoy how elastic and chewy these were - but we didn't order them. Not sure if someone fucked up, but we didn't get our order of beef cheung-fun. I would be pretty pissed if these weren't ape-shit delicious.



And some of these! I don't think anything I say about scallion pancakes is actually worth a fart (I guess you could argue that about anything I've written on my blog), but theirs weren't fantastic. It's not that they tasted bad or anything - they were hot, crispy, and as my ass-clown Korean friend in LA would say "it tastes like scallions" - they were just really generic. Almost like the ones you get from frozen packaging. To be fair, I ate most of them, probably with a shit-eating grin on my face the entire time, but I wasn't wowed. Let's put it this way... I could've stood up while wearing sweatpants because there'd be no boner to hide.



Their egg rolls are supposedly their signature dish... and I'd be lying if I said they didn't taste good. The problem here is honestly that I have no fucking clue what's inside of them. If you're expecting the "traditional" egg roll from an Americanized take-out joint - roast pork, lots of cabbage, lots of bean sprouts, and carrots - your mouth is going to hate you. I think there was hints of tofu, more than a couple slivers of mushroom, and possibly even egg (cray, I know), but I might be making that all up. The mish-mash of flavors simply works even if it is unmemorable as a whole. If you like knowing what you're putting in your mouth, then you should probably steer clear. If you're a tastebud slut who'd swallow anything without question - it's actually worth a try. Uh, for people who don't fall into either of those categories... you're on your own.



As an aside, do you know why I hate writing about dim sum? Never mind the fact that "all dim sum is good dim sum" to me. Look at the turnip cake above. Looks delicious right? Fuck yeah it does. All crispy and Maillard reaction'd up. The problem is, it's the same as every other dim sum place. It's a block of gelatinous turnip that's pan fried. No one can screw that up. No one. Not even me. I've made that shit before and it was premium. You wouldn't it was from Nom Wah if it weren't for that tacky-ass table spread. Whatever, end rant. Their turnip cake was good.



Not sure why we bought a giant plate of fried meat, but you really don't need a good reason to ever do that. Nom Wah's deep-fried rib tips are confusing to me. Most spare-rib tips are drenched in a sauce comprised of soy, honey, and maltose syrup - so their unadulterated offering just feels... wrong? But it's not. It's eerily reminiscent of salt & pepper chicken (if you're Taiwanese, you know what I mean, otherwise - think of popcorn chicken that's seasoned with pepper beyond belief), and offers up a reasonably flavorful bite of fat and crispy pork. None of that sounds bad. Unless you're vegetarian, you should at least try it.



Oh look, it's sticky rice with strips of egg. I don't like ordering this shit at dim sum. You know why? Two reasons... I always feel like my OG grandmother could make a better version at home and in larger quantity, and also because I feel like it's a waste of carb real estate that can be saved for better things. Better things like...



Giant buns of roast pork. If I were in charge of the cafeteria at my office, every meal would begin, and end, with a roast pork bun. While I can safely say nothing else at Nom Wah truly makes me 'moist,' they fuckin' kill it on this one. Considering how many places you can get this shit, that's high praise. Their offering is a huge bitch - with a bun the size of a small plate and stuffed to the gills with deliciously fatty cancer pork. Also, it's pretty cheap... so my two real scoring criteria are both fulfilled.

I feel like I've come full circle with this post. I can't find it now... but I vaguely writing a post in which I basically said that an Asian restaurant full of white people was the ultimate red flag in bootleg. That it basically meant I should run far and fast away from the land of lo mein and egg rolls. With Nom Wah - while it's certainly not the pinnacle of... well, anything - I've realized that isn't 100% canon. There are lots of non-Asians inside, and their food is actually pretty decent. Where am I going with this? I'm not sure. I should probably stop being prejudiced now.

tl;dr - Nom Wah sold out big time, now caters to tourists and non-Asians. Someone made me go, and I've seen the light. Their food is not bad. Their roast pork bun is arguably great. I'd go back, but probably not make it a destination.

Nom Wah
13 Doyers Street, New York, NY 10013
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Non-Asians and Asian food suggestions (Dim Sum Garden)

Something I asked on Twitter last week... "Is it racist that I don't trust non-Asians when they make Asian food suggestions?" The answers varied. A few Asian people lol'd and told me they do the same. On the other end of the spectrum... someone suggested that it wasn't racist, but that it was ignorance. I won't try to deny that I have more than my fair share of idiotic views in life, but let me clarify what I really meant by this statement - I don't (generally) trust non-Asians when they preach about how deliciously authentic an Asian dish is i.e. don't trust whitey. Is that really so bad? It's not that I don't trust my non-Asian friends' perspectives on food. If you have good taste, you have good taste, but how can someone possibly comment on the authenticity of a dish if they have never had it from the source before? As I've learned from my engineering writing source... if you're just following fobs around, you're simply paraphrasing the source. Give credit where credit is due.

Last week I went with a friend to a small Chinese restaurant near Reading Terminal Market called Dim Sum Garden. The name is kind of deceptive, it's not so much a dim sum place in the traditional sense as it is a place that serves Shanghai style entrees and appetizers.

One of the things I most definitely wanted was 炸醬麵 (zha jiang mian), the Northern Chinese take on black bean noodles. DSG's version was super traditional - gobs of loosely strewn pork combined with a salty and slightly runny black bean sauce peppered with a hint of spiciness and sweetness. It was good, and to me... it was super authentic. My grandfather was from Northern China, ate this shit all the time, and cooked it for me all the time. See? I can say that because I've been there eaten the food, and have a direct comparison.



Shanghai shumai (上海燒賣) are apparently a sticky rice variant on normal shumai. Instead of gob of pork you get a gob of sticky rice with bits of pork inside. As much as I love rice, I think I enjoy pork more. I was not in love with this dish, but the texture was admittedly as interesting as anything I've eaten recently. See... I will not comment on the authenticity of this dish because I have no fucking clue if it's legit or not. I have never been to Shanghai, nor do I hail from there... so I will refrain from making assclown statements about whether it is "native" or not. They're fun to eat, I'll leave it at that.



We also got pan-fried dumplings (生煎包). These were, in fact, actually awesome. As good as most, and filled with more meat, than any I've ever eaten in Taiwan. The skins were super thin, borderline transparent, and they exploded with pork juices upon puncture. Again, I can make this statement because I know what the OG versions taste like, having sampled directly from the source.



What can I say about this? It's a cold dish of roasted pork (將肉). Flavor-wise it's pretty bland, you dip it in sugary soy sauce or vinegar soy sauce, but texturally it's fun to play with. The odd bits of cartilage make for curiously gelatinous nuances, adding a slight crunch to an otherwise plain cooking of meat. Twas good. Again, I have no clue where this dish actually originates, but it's something that was always on my table growing up... so I feel 100% validated in making asinine statements about it.

To conclude on this post which I'm surely to get bashed for... it's not that I completely distrust non-Asians when it comes to Asian food suggestions, I just find it ridiculous how often people make ridiculous commentary on things that they're completely oblivious to (I'm sure I do this too... and I hate myself for it). I mean, I'm sure an aeronautics engineer could explain to you how an airplane flies from reading books, but I wouldn't want them flying a plane. Similarly, you can tell me food is good, but leave out the commentary on authenticity unless you've hard the original for comparison. Until then, I'll continue to listen to Asians when it comes to Asian food.
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Yes, more dim sum (新樂 Shamrock Seafood Restaurant)

Over the course of 2 days, I felt compelled to go to multiple dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong. Not for lack of variety or anything, but just because my first experience had been so... scintillating, that I wanted to see if every dim sum parlor in HK was just of another standard compared to the US and Taiwan. In hindsight, I probably should've stopped at the first one, since things can only really go downhill from an experience like that, but on the morning before my flight, I stumbled into a smaller place called 'Shamrock Seafood Restaurant.' I had high hopes that a cheaper atmosphere would foster a more 'authentic' flavor... whatever that means.

Anyway, note to self (if I ever do end up going back to HK). Don't get 小籠包 from a dim sum parlor. They're overpriced, and not all that good. Perhaps it's because incredible soup dumpling places are a dime a dozen in Taiwan, but I was thoroughly disappointed with these. Thick skins, lack of soup, and bland meat describe these to a tee. When you couple that with the fact that I'm only getting 3 per basket... well, that's just annoying. Sure they look nice, but they were pretty awful.



Then there's these. Again with the 鹹水餃 (salty water dumplings) since I'm obligated to order this everywhere. These were actually good, but then again it's really hard to screw up frying glutinous rice and stuffing it with fatty pork isn't it?



More turnip cakes! Also remarkably well prepared. Flaky exterior holding together delicate shreds of steamed turnip just waiting to fall apart. Sound familiar?



Oh great, it's more of those stupid things called 潮州蒸粉果 (Chao Zhou steamed fen guo) with the water chestnut filling. God I hate them so much. They're bland, they have a strange texture, and the only reason we bought them was so my grandmother would stop complaining about my unhealthy eating habits. Argh, sometimes I honestly don't know why old people like things that taste like nothing.



Ultimately it was okay though, because I also got char siu noodle wraps. Like I said, rice noodles = awesome, char siu = awesome, rice noodles + char siu = still awesome. I realize that some people prefer getting these with shrimp, or beef, or vegetables inside, but that's not my cup of tea. Nope, 10 times out of 10 I'll go with char siu. Goddamn I miss this so much.



I didn't really love these all that much. I don't even remember what they're called (they did have a special name). What I do remember though, is that they were on the day's special menu, and that you get 3 meatballs for 4 HKD. Which is like 58 cents. That's stupid cheap. So cheap that I felt compelled to order it even though I wasn't sure what I was ordering. Plus they're bright red. Bonus points for bright red meat. That's always a plus in my book.



This is actually a dish I looked for at the other dim sum place but couldn't find. It's basically layered pastry with char siu stuck inside, which is then baked, and glazed over top with sugar. End result is a sweet and savory dish. One that I'm not sure should be classified as dessert or not. Still valid here is the fact that char siu in Hong Kong tends to be sweeter and more sauce based than the ones in Taiwan, so the filling is much more apt to spill out upon biting. Call it a plus or minus, whatever, basically this shit is irresistible.



Of course I got egg tarts too. Except these were shaped like footballs, and bright orange instead of yellow. All the same, the pastry portion is light and buttery, the filling is delicate with a subtle sweetness. All the previous superlatives regarding egg tarts still apply here. Nothing new, carry on. Anyway, I realize most of these pictures look really similar to the ones from the other dim sum place, and some people might say I'm an idiot for taking pictures of things that look exactly alike. Well... yeah that's probably true, but I actually have nothing better to do. So... there.
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Dim sum at (稻香超級漁港)

I don't think anyone would believe I actually visited Hong Kong if I didn't make at least one trip to a dim sum restaurant. I mean, it's pretty much the holy grail of the push cart right? The place with which all dim sum hails from and so on. Anyway, since I had put off visiting any dim sum places all the while I've been staying in Taiwan, it was only fair that I'd get to go multiple times. The first time was at a place called 稻香超級漁港 on Nathan Road, which translates to "The aroma of rice super harbor restaurant," or so I think. With a name like that, how could I go wrong?

First dish is always 燒賣 (shau mai). I forget why, but for some reason, all the dishes were considered 小點 that day, so everything was uniform in price. Don't ask me the price, I don't really recall that. I was too happy stuffing my face with pork & shrimp balls.



I pretty much went with all the conventional dishes. I wanted a standard of comparison (which I'll get to later). Their turnip cakes were amazingly soft in the center, but with an impossibly crispy outer skin. Deceptively difficult to pick up with chopsticks, the eventual struggle is ultimately rewarded with the stark contrast in feel. They should get bonus points for the unknown sauce. Not oyster sauce, not soy sauce, and not hot sauce, but some perfect blend of the three.



I don't know what this is called in English. It's 叉燒腸粉 (cha shao chang fen), or basically char siu wrapped in rice noodles. I love this dish so much for a few reasons. Char siu is like the greatest of all meats... it's semi-sweet pork that's bright red, and it's wrapped in rice noodles... which is pretty much the combination of everything good in Chinese cuisine. Plus it's really hard to screw up. I thought that I had already experienced really good takes on this dish in NYC and NJ, but I was wrong. When it's made to order, with freshly steamed noodles and just finished pork, the dish is transcendental in flavor. Nothing against the places in the US that serve it by pushcart, but a lot is lost in time of transit.



Called 潮州粉果 (chao zhou fen guo), these steamed dumplings are filled with water chestnuts and other crap I don't really recall. Why? I didn't really like them. Hm, why'd we order them you might ask? Probably because my grandmother was flipping out that all I was having was fried pork and fried shrimp. Well, this was to appease her. There... healthy food that doesn't taste all that good.



Ahhh, more char siu. In the form of steamed buns. Let me reiterate the fact that HK does a mean char siu. The same sweet bright red pork is stuffed inside pillowy pockets of white dough and steamed to perfection. Softer than Taiwanese 饅頭, and with a filling sweeter than what I've come to expect in either Taipei or NYC, these were definitely good. Nothing life changing, but certainly worthy of use as a standard to which other char siu buns can be compared.



Goddamnit I'm bad at translations. They're called 鹹水餃 in Mandarin, or I guess 'salty water dumplings' if you go by literal translation. Whatever, it doesn't really matter, I'm sure you've seen them if you've been to dim sum. They're fried pockets of sticky rice with shrimp and pork and other assorted elements inside. Normally larger and cut open with a pair of scissors, I was kind of surprised to find miniature golden puffs placed on the table. Still, the concept is the same, and the execution was spot on. The fact that they still squirted hot oil upon biting was a nice reminder that these were just made.



And of course, to close out the meal. Sesame balls. Filled with lotus paste. The one dish I didn't really like. Primarily due to their diminutive size, the shell to filling ratio is skewed in the wrong direction. Yeah, I'm nitpicking a bit here, but given the choice, everyone likes more filling. Although the multicolored sesame seeds were a nice aesthetic touch.

Basically, dim sum in HK is fantastic. Not because they make outrageous changes to any of the dishes or anything, and not even because they prepare stuff more meticulously. Nope, I'm pretty sure the main difference between dim sum in Taiwan, the US, and HK is the fact that they do everything to order. Dishes are made as you request them. None of your dishes arrive lukewarm or steamed to death, but rather... everything is exactly as you'd expect and more. Oh, and it's cheaper. I think everything I ate (which is everything here + doubles of some dishes) ended up being $20 for three people, and that's at a somewhat nice restaurant.
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