Hello, everyone! I hope you all had fabulous Labor Day weekends with burgers and hotdogs and some form of kickball. Work sucks, doesn’t it?
So last night I was watching No Reservations as usual, because if I can’t travel all around the world to eat then Anthony Bourdain will have to do it for me. Last night’s episode was a particular treat as Tony traveled to Hong Kong, maker of some of the bestest food to ever exist. And he ended the episode with my favorite part of Chinese food, hands down: Dim Sum.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of eating dim sum, it works like this: You sit at a table, maybe order some tea, and then wait as women wheel carts piled high with dumplings, spare ribs, vegetables and other small plates of noodles and meat and sauce around. As each cart comes by your table you inquire as to what is on it, and if something catches your fancy you ask for it. The cart-lady then stamps your dim sum card (like a pre-labeled check, as such) with the correct number of things at the correct price point. It’s incredibly cheap, and unbelievably delicious. It is by far my favorite way to consume Chinese food.
Obviously, Hong Kong is the best place to get dim sum, but since I certainly can’t afford to fly there every Saturday and Sunday morning (Oh yeah — dim sum in America is kind of like a Chinese subtitute for brunch; it’s usually done between, say, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on the weekends, though many restaurants offer dim sum menus all day every day), I like to head into Wheaton, MD to go to Hollywood East Cafe.
There are two Hollywood East Cafes, and the one I prefer is technically called “Hollywood East Cafe on the Boulevard” (the boulevard being University Blvd). Hollywood East offers a huge and thoroughly traditional Cantonese menu during the week, and their dim sum selection is superb. The owner claims to server 50 to 60 different options, and I truly believe her. From the traditional Hargao and Shumai to deep-fried breadsticks (that’s a new one, believe me. I saw it for the first time last week) and super-crispy spring rolls, Hollywood East has everything.
No dim sum for me is complete without at least one tin of hargao (shrimp dumplings wrapped in delicious, translucent rice dumpling wrapper) (all to myself, btw. I don’t share hargao), an order of shrimp rice noodle crepes (with that incredible sweet sauce poured on top), a couple varieties of pan-fried or steamed vegetable dumplings, chinese broccoli steamed and covered in oyster sauce (I make this at home too — sooooo good), bean sheet (that’s like super-thin tofu) wrapped around bamboo shoots and vegetables and doused in light sauce (sometimes, on proper menus, that is called Yellow Bird), and a pineapple bun. If they’re available, the baby clams in black bean sauce are to die for and my sister and I have literally gotten into fights over them. Beef Chow Foon is another speciality, and there’s usually a new noodle experiment each week to be tasted. Steamed pork buns, steamed vegetable buns, stuffed egg plant, pan-fried taro, the list goes on and on. I even like the super-fake gelatinous deserts they have that are cut into perfect squares and made of colors that would never, ever occur in nature (and, somehow, they always taste of coconut. Yum!) The only thing I will never ever go near is congee. Congee is that semi-congealed soup that Chinese people seem rather fond of… I’m terrified of it. Semi-congealed is not a texture my American mouth can deal with.
Dim Sum has been a weekend family tradition since I was a child — I was 7 the first time I tried a rice noodle crepe — so I consider myself somewhat of a connessieur. As I drooled over the packed teahouse in Hong Kong where real chinese people ordered crispy barbequed chicken feet for Anthony Bourdain, I found myself involuntarily muttering my family’s dim sum refrain, “Hargao, shumai? Hargao, shumai?” And, as if they heard me, one of his hosts pops up to go run over to a cart for some food. Upon his return he proudly displays his catch: Hargao!!
If you ever go to Hollywood East for dim sum and don’t want to wait for a table (things get crazy busy between noon and 1:30, 2 p.m.), here are some other delicious dim sum options in the DC area:
Good Fortune (across the street from Hollywood East, also on University Blvd.)
Silver Dragon (in the Aspen Hill shopping center, at the end of Connecticut Ave.)
–Sara
