Sake and then some

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A casual get together to catch up with a couple of friends, and it would be my first chance to try out the dim sum at Seventh Son (家全七福).  I'd heard mixed reviews regarding lunch, so I was pretty excited to see for myself.

Deep-fried salt water dumplings (家鄉咸水角) - pretty good as I expected.

Pan-fried cured meat and radish cake (香煎蘿蔔糕) - one look and I knew it was a little too wet and soggy.  When you don't make the effort of drying this out, the radish cake is bound to be too loose and start to come apart even in the wok.  Of course, when I tried picking it up with my chopsticks, the thing just disintegrated.  Taste-wise this was delicious, as they used a higher proportion of real radish - that was very obvious.

Steamed prawn dumplings with bamboo shoots (har gau, 筍尖鮮蝦餃) - curiously, the wrappers were a little too dry and hard.  Otherwise this was fine.

Steamed dumpling Chiuchow style (潮州粉果) - over-steamed... the wrapper was too sticky... otherwise tasted fine.

Steamed honey roast pork buns (char siu bao, 蠔皇叉燒包) - yummy.

Steamed rice rolls with minced beef (爽滑牛肉腸)

Steamed pork dumpling with tripe (豬肚燒賣) - this is very old school... a siu mai with just the meatball without wrapper, although pork liver is a more common topping.  I love tripe, so it's not hard for me to like this...

Roast suckling pig (化皮乳豬件) - not bad, but just can't beat having the whole pig!

Blanched choy sum (上湯菜心)

Baked egg yolk and lotus seed paste tart (蛋黃蓮蓉小鳳酥) - baked in the shape of little chicks...

...with an egg yolk center surrounded by sweet lotus seed paste.

Minced beef and egg congee (滑蛋牛肉粥) - very delicious.  The minced beef was nice and tender, and the raw egg mixed into the congee was nice, too.

Steamed layer cake (鳳凰千層糕)

My friend was very kind and brought along a very special bottle of sake, even though he knew we probably wouldn't be able to finish it.  It's a good thing that the owner was here with his daughter, so we could offer them a glass of the sake...

Daishichi Myouka Rangyoku (大七 妙花蘭曲), vintage 2008 - a junmai daiginjo (純米大吟醸) made using the kimoto (生酛) method and collected by letting it drip naturally (雫), with a seimaibuai (精米歩合) of 50% and a total production of 3,376 bottles.  This was really something.  The nose was pretty rich and full, with plenty of starchy, sticky rice at first, along with tropical fruits like banana and peach.  Very elegant and round on the palate at first, then built up to a pretty strong and dry finish.  Very fragrant and lovely.