Friday, September 17, 2010

Yum cha: dim sum at Royal Seafood Chinese, 91 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge WA

It's always great to discover a new yum cha place.  I caught up with my very old friend Roger (no he's  old but not that old, but we've known each other for nearly 20 years) whom I hadn't seen in a while.  In between co-running one of Australia's fastest growing building companies, raising two boys and keeping up with a wife who never seems to age, he's a very busy man, so it was great to get some of his time.

Rog suggested that we try Royal Seafood in Northbridge, which is right next door to European Foods on Aberdeen Street.

The quality of the food is excellent.  When the dumplings are in a thin, translucent casing, proudly displaying the whole prawn, scallop, meat pattie or whatever the filling is, you know you're eating quality (as compared to a thick opaque casing, in which case you know you're going to be eating flavoured dough).

A couple of highlights were (a) the pork and coriander dumplings - boring name, but Tasty* morsel, with lots of flavour, and sporting not just coriander, but other bits like sesame seeds; and (b) the pork spare ribs. These were plumper and sporting more meat and much less bone than most other dim sum places.  The siew long bau was nice, but sadly had split and spilt its precious cargo of juices before I could even liberate them from the bamboo pot liner which refused to relinquish its sticky grip.  What is up with that?  Someone needs to come up with a better liner that doesn't hang on to the dim sum dumplings like velcro to a fuzzy surface.

The price was reasonable for the quality I thought - it aint' the cheapest, but it wasn't overpriced either.  All in all, a great lunch.

*Say it like Samuel L. Jackson did when he ate the soon-to-be-deceased Brett's burger in Pulp Fiction - that was a great scene by the way.

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