Yum Cha @ Luk Yu Tea House, Hong Kong

On Sunday morning, a few of us went over for dim sum brunch. To place our order, we had to indicate quantity on the menu that doubled up as an ordering sheet. Under normal circumstances (i.e. in Singapore or in the company of our parents), the wholly Chinese menu wouldn’t have been a problem; at Luk Yu however, we found ourselves dealing with Chinese characters that seemed familiar when read alone but didn’t make any sense when strung in fours and fives.



After we unsuccessfully tried to make sense of the pictography, we decided to approach the friendliest looking (read: least frown lines) staff, who ticked off the order sheet as we role called some quintessential dishes.

Length of time it took us to decide we couldn't figure out the menu: 10 minutes
Length of time it took us to muster up some courage: 3 minutes
Length of time the waiter took to take our order: 30 seconds



So how was the dim sum?

HMMM.

Overall, I thought it was a little too old school for my liking. Most of the dim sum was boorishly presented and the standard seemed paralyzed with age.



Take the egg tarts, har gow and siew mais for example: sure they weren’t inedible, just that I have had better at er, just about everywhere esle. The glutinous rice, wrapped in lotus leaf was dry and bland, instead of being sticky and aromatic. That being said, at least we recognized these dishes as little did we realise this was just the start of a rather long (and expensive journey).



We were bewildered when the taro on toast, breaded and deep fried, landed on our table and horrified when meatballs flanked with 2 huge slabs of liver followed closely behind. We went from “gee I didn’t know we ordered these” to “gee I didn’t know we ordered these but I’m quite sure we didn’t because it looks positively vile!”



I once met a Danish who worked in Hong Kong but failed to appreciate the allure of dim sum because he could never figure out “what was inside.” Today, I finally understood what he meant. May I present to you the (dim) sum of all fears- these seemingly innocuous leaf-shaped dumplings. On the surface, it looked like oblong xiao long baos and even contained “broth” like xiao long baos.

But that’s where the similarities end because (insert British accent here) it was absolutely dodgy! The jaundice- looking dumplings were filled with questionable minced meat and unidentifiable broth. In fact, to call it “broth” would be letting the kitchen of easy because it was unlike any chicken/ beef/ pork stock I have ever had. -shudder-



Under normal circumstances I would have clarified with the waiters but my sister warned me about making a fuss and since the power of language eluded me, I wasn’t about to start a battle I couldn’t win. In a bid to salvage lunch, we ordered a plate of char siew, which we ate in relief; however, in light of such uninspiring dishes, we declined to order more. The restaurant was only half-filled during Sunday's lunch- looks like we aren't the only ones feeling shortchanged.