Chinatown Brasserie

I returned, for dim sum.  New York Magazine gave Chinatown Brasserie the nod for being the best dim sum in town.  They could be right. 

We went this past Sunday.  You order off the menu vs. the people carting the food around.  I must admit, I prefer the carting of the food because you may discover something different through a visaul but that is okay.  When we saw something coming out of the kitchen that looked interesting, we just pulled our waiter aside and asked him to get us that too.

There are steamed, fried and specialties.  We went with a little of everything.  For the fried, we went with the shrimp pot stickers.  Simple, delicious and not gooey at all.  Everything came with a special sauce too. The best was the barbecued duck egg rolls.  We opted for another round after eating those.  You can close your eyes and think you are eating Peking duck.   For the steamed we opted for a variety of types.  Shrimp and snow leaf dumplings.  Small little dumplings that had an egg based covering stuffed with leafs and shrimps.  Really delicious.  We also went with the sticky rice.  Wrapped inside a tarot leaf was sticky rice chalked with shrimp and veggies.  Interesting.  I really liked how sticky the rice was but not as flavorful as the dumplings.  Roast pork is essential.  Big white balls stuffed with barbecued pork.  So good and you can’t beat the pulled apart dough.  A true treat is the pork crab meat soup dumpling.  I could eat a few portions myself.  First of all, they are beautiful.  Wrapped up with a small piece of vegetable coming out of the top.  When you pick up the dumpling you can feel and see the soup hanging out at the bottom.  It literally melts in your mouth when you pop it in.  Of the specialties, we went with the Malaysian eggplant and shrimp.  Roasted eggplant with shrimp type dumplings on top.  This was different and quite good. I liked the intensity of the eggplant surrounded with the shrimp.  I believe we had a few others but I can’t recall.  We saw the crispy tarot root shrimp coming out of the kitchen and asked for an order.  They are beautiful.  Small swans, tasty too. 

When we were done, we couldn’t resist in ordering one dessert.  We had the custard dessert.  Small round dumplings filled with warm custard.  Like eating a portion of a warm Krispy Kreme donut filled with cream but better.  Nobody could speak after we each popped one in our mouth.  A wonderful way to end a dim sum Sunday brunch.