Dim Sum and Then Some

Tonight Matt and I visited our local chinese restaurant, Gold Mountain. We have been there before but have never gone back as, in my opinion, they did not offer anything out of the ordinary from the standard american-chinese restaurant.

This evening I read a review online about their dim sum and how you had to ask for the menu as it was not given with the 'american-chinese' food. The review also wrote how they serve Pho <3

So off we went! I was all ready to ask for the dim sum menu, but found that they had already added it (and the pho) to the back of the original menu.

Dim sum means 'to touch the heart' and according to wikipedia (which is NEVER wrong) it's origins are found in the tea houses along the silk route in china and is now popularly linked to 'yum cha', drinking tea. Apparently it took a while for the tea houses to start selling food with their tea as it was believed, in that day, that to combine tea and food would lead to excessive weight gain. As time went on people began to understand the digestive properties of tea, and so tea and dim sum were then combined.

First we started with some steamed prawn dumplings, which looked remarkably like jellyfish, and curry squid.



Next was some roast duck. This was delicious, especially the crispy fatty skin, but there were a lot of bones to pick around and I don't really like doing that.



Then we tried some CHICKEN FEET!!



It was very bizarre spitting out chicken phalanges, but well worth it for the flavour of the sauce in combination with the texture of the 'meat' which is basically skin and tendon. Matt was rather wary of trying it but he did in the end, yet commented on how there wasn't much to eat on it. But it was fun to try!!!

Time for a drink of tea. 'yum cha' everyone!



O.K. now on to sticky rice and chicken wrapped in lotus leaves.
This was my favourite part of the meal.
Unwrapping the lotus leaves released a cloud of fragrant steam formed by the combination of the cooked chicken and the tannins of the leaf. Both Matt and I commented on the scent at the same time!
The sticky rice was great, but the chicken inside was awesome!
It was some chicken and mushroom mix and I think there was some egg in there too and also a small amount of some kind of sauce. It was the sauce that was rich tasting and when taken with the rice and the leaf scent it resulted in a very satisfying mouth full. I shall definitely get that again in the future. At the same time as this Matt also had some spare ribs.


Here is a view of the opened lotus leaves



Finally we had fried seaweed wrapped shrimp roll. Again this dish did not disappoint, the batter was light and didn't smother the delicate tastes of the shrimp and seaweed.



All of these dishes led to one happy customer who will be returning in the near future to sample more of the dim sum dishes and the Pho too!! Time for some more 'yum cha'.



And thank you to Matt, for taking the photos and trying the chicken feet :)