Eating Our Way Through The Olympics Part 3: The Best Dim Sum Ever

Even though I've never been to Hong Kong I imagine the food would taste like the dim sum we enjoyed our last day in Richmond. The photos don't do the meal justice, but hopefully the food looks as delicious as it tasted.

I wanted to start out the photos with pictures of food people would recognize. We ordered three orders of ha gao (shrimp dumplings). This is my favorite and a staple dish for any self respecting dim sum enthusiast.

We also got a few orders of shu mai (pork dumplings), but what made these amazing was the shrimp and tobiko (crunchy flying fish eggs) topping. Also they were sweeter than most shu mai. This is another staple dim sum dish.

We needed some greens so Pert suggest choi sum which is on the left. It's basically a leafy green pan fried in garlic. Similar to gai lan or Chinese broccoli, but not as dense. On the right is deep fried eggplant with shrimp which was delicious. Deep frying the eggplant made it tender and sweet.

Steamed chives and shrimp wrapped in a wide noodle served with a sweet soy sauce. As you can see shrimp is a popular dim sum ingredient.

Beef chow fun noodles - this ended up being the dreaded filler dish of the meal. I tried not to eat too much of this dish because I wanted to save room for everything else. This was probably the only dish that made it to a styrofoam take home box.

Salt and pepper fried squid, salty and delicious. Usually salt and pepper anything is good at Chinese restaurants.

Now we're getting in to the more "unique" dishes. This was the fried chicken leg joints dish. Literally chicken knees and elbows were deep fried for us to pop in our mouths like popcorn shrimp. I'm a fan of tendons and cartilage so I liked the crunchiness, but this is definitely not for everyone.

Steamed BBQ pork hum baos another safe, predictable dim sum dish. Can't go wrong here, unless you want to save room for other dishes.

Shrimp bean curd roll. It sounds weird, but it was pretty good. The outside bean curd is like an unsweetened, wet philo layer like in baklava. Not a lot of flavor, more about the texture and the inside deliciousness.

Another fun dish is chicken feet. I make everyone try it at least once. I understand if you never want to order it again, but if you eat dim sum with me you have to try it at least once. Another dish that's good if you enjoy cartilage and picking meat off of bones.

I don't know what the hell this was. It came late in our meal and we found out we hadn't ordered it so they took it away. My guess is curried baby octopus. Hey I'll try anything, but this looked gross.

Turnip cake which also had chinese sausage, mushrooms, and green onions in it. Basically it tasted a lot better than it sounded.

BBQ spareribs, these things are amazing and I always order them when I eat dim sum. The problem is that the garlic makes me smell for days, seriously, ask Emi.

The best and only way to finish off a dim sum feast, egg tarts. For anyone who hasn't had one before the warm, buttery, flaky crust melts in your mouth when you bite into the sweet, rich, creamy egg custard. The slight sweetness to the egg tarts is a great way to end a salty, decadent dim sum meal.

I think the 8 of us who shared this meal would all agree that this was the best dim sum we have ever had. They know their Chinese food in Richmond. Even though only a few of you read this blog I don't have a name or address for this restaurant to share, but I'm sure I'll be up across the border again soon. Until next time!

- Kyle