Small indulgence

[chickenfeet]

The lemur took me out to lunch today. We went to Traditional Chinese Buns which is a hole in the wall in Chinatown specialising in northern Chinese dim sum type snacks, IWe had been once before and knew that it's quite different from the general run of dim sum places in town which serve a fairly standard set of Cantonese items. We had a hard time settling on one of the cold plates but finally settled on the boars' ears in chilli sauce though we gave due consideration to the red cooked pig's intestine. The ears were crunchy/chewy in a sesame/chilli sauce flecked with green onion. It was pretty good but even the small serving could better have been split among four than two (The 'large' must be a veritable aural hecatomb). We followed it with first rate steamed shrimp and crab dumplings. These are pretty much like the steamed dumplings elsewhere except for the wrappers which had a slightly doughy "home made" taste and texture. We finished up with a plate of pumpkin pancakes and some spicy mutton shashlik. All in all, a very satisfying lunch for two and less than $25 with tax and tip.

Comments

[divafu.livejournal.com]

oh man that meal sounds so good. wish there were cheap dim sum places here...

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

There's a small-ish chain, here in the USA, called A & J Restaurant (can't find anything resembling a reasonable website, alas). It is Northern Chinese-style dim sum and just wonderful. The turnip pastry, not to be confused with turnip cake, is to swoon over. The thousand-layer pastry is good, the scallion pastry even better.

Alas, our favorite place for pig's ear (and jonsinger has eaten the stuff all over China), has changed menu, chef, and proprietors.

But, if you are risking yourself to the USA and the cessation of civil rights and end up in the D.C. area, please do contact me or jonsinger. We have a plethora (== metric butt-load) of food experiences to offer you. Baltimore works, too.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Am I the only person who read this as "Traditional Chinese Burns"?

Sounds fab, though.