![]() I've eaten a lot of dim sum in my day, and I'd like to think I've tried just about everything, but I encountered something completely new today. I like the steamed ones better, but these came around first :) I liked the strong star anise flavor, just wish the soy flavor could've been there to round it out.īaked char siu bao were perfect - fluffy buns with a sweet glazed top, and sweet barbecue pork inside. They tasted as if they were either not braised with the sauce, or not braised for long enough. The feet themselves were bigger and had more meat/skin on them, but they seemed to be missing something. Jade Garden's had a stronger star anise flavor, but otherwise just tasted a little weaker. The one dish that Honey Court did better than Jade Garden was the chicken feet. I preferred the shrimp and chive dumpling to the har gow, because it didn't fall apart quite as much, plus I loved the strong chive flavor. The wrapper for the har gow was a little flimsy, but it didn't really effect the taste, just made eating a little frustrating. All were delcious, although the eggplant was room temperature, verging on cold. ![]() We tried several different shrimp based offerings, including fried shrimp-stuffed eggplant, har gow and pan fried shrimp and chive dumplings. These two things set the pace for the rest of the meal, which was as close to San Francisco or Vancouver dim sum as I've found in Seattle. The noodles were slippery and very fresh tasting, encasing some nice sized shrimp. The siu mai were very juicy and flavorful - probably a lot of pork fat involved. We started off with two dim sum standards, a good way to judge the overall ability of a dim sum place: siu mai, and cheong fan. The restaurant is a definite step up in decor from Honey Court, but with Chinese restaurants increase in decor can often mean decrease in flavor. If you’re in Seattle Chinatown, I recommend passing up on Purple Dot Café and crossing the street to have dim sum at Honey Court or going to any other Chinese restaurant serving dim sum.Jade Garden is pretty well known as one of Seattle's top dim sum places, and this could easily be seen by the packed house on a Tuesday morning. ![]() They took their time filling our empty pot of tea and they didn’t cut the dishes into smaller pieces (dim sum dishes are supposed to be bite-sized!), so Jiejie and I ended up nibbling our way around the fried shrimp balls that most anyone would probably have choked on had they attempted to eat the whole thing. The restaurant doesn’t give me much to talk about other than the food was okay and that the service could be better. It wasn’t exactly the salt and pepper tofu I wanted, and so I ribbed my friend and told her that her Chinese was off. We finished with fried shrimp balls and fried tofu with shrimp. The carts kept passing and I kept eyeing for egg rolls and fried salt and pepper tofu. We started with lo mai gai (sticky rice in lotus leaves), fung jeow (chicken feet), har gau (shrimp dumplings), and bean curd wrap. The ladies with their cart of dim sum dishes circled around the restaurant hawking the foods on their cart. When we arrived around lunch hour, the place was on the empty side, but it got packed and the tables were “moved” quickly. ![]() My first choice was Honey Court – I should have stuck with my first choice. Many years passed and I decided to return to Purple Dot Café, and this time around with a girlfriend and for dim sum.Īfter spending the morning at Benaroya Hall doing our duties as Seattle Symphony Volunteers, my girlfriend and jiejie, Norita and I headed to Chinatown for dim sum. I have been to Purple Dot Café only twice in fact, it’s my first Seattle restaurant, courtesy of family friends who took me to Purple Dot for a dine out treat. As an Asian gal who has had her fill of a variety of Asian foods (for a lowdown, go on to my site’s culture category), I have high expectations for dim sum dishes and the dim sum experience. ![]()
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