Dim sum Sunday

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Mikacina is swinging through town for a couple of days, and I finally found the chance to catch up with her very briefly. Since dim sum was on the wishlist, I decided to book us a table at Forum Restaurant (富臨飯店). It's really become our go-to place for dim sum, or even just when we are looking for some solid Cantonese fare. For our visitor, it's a chance to check a 3-star restaurant off her list.

Steamed vegetarian dumpling with mixed mushroom (雲南野菌餃) - I'm not sure why I don't order this more often, because they really do a fantastic job with their vegetarian dumplings. These were filled with mushrooms from Yunnan Province that were just packed with punchy flavors.

Steamed beef honeycomb tripe with chu hou sauce (柱侯金錢肚) - the tripe was very tender, as one would expect, and there were chunks of braised radish underneath. I wasn't quite used to the flavors of the chu hou sauce (柱侯醬) in the tripe, though.

Ah Yat steamed premium shrimp dumpling with pork (阿一蝦餃皇) - this may not be the most fancy har gau around, but it's classic and done very well, with 12 pleats in the wrapper.

Steamed rice rolls with dried shrimp and scallion (蔥花脆米腸) - somehow I've never managed to order this particular version of cheung fun (腸粉), which is done street food-style, complete with an assortment of sauces one can squirt on top.

Well... I found this a little disappointing. The rolls weren't as thin and delicate as many from cheaper outlets, and I would have even preferred for these to have been pan-fried so there was a little bit of crispy texture. Oh well...

Pan-fried lamb bun stuffed with leek and green onion (甘肅羊肉生煎包) - The Great One requested this and since I had something similar on my last visit, I was only too happy to oblige. These did seem a little too soft and fluffy for a classic Shanghainese shengjianbao (生煎包), but hey...

...but this was so, sooo tasty! The flavors of the lamb mutton aside, the diced spring onions were absolutely fantastic! This was such an amazingly juicy bun! Suddenly the lyrics from Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf pops into my head:

"...Mouth is alive, with juices like wine
And I'm hungry like the wolf..."

Pan-fried glutinous rice with conpoy, scallop and chicken (鳳凰煎米雞) - I haven't ordered this in a couple of years, even though I loved it the first time I tasted it, because the portion is just too damn big and it's also pretty heavy. But I was kinda feeling it today...

The glutinous rice was pan-fried with a thin layer of salted egg yolk on the outside. Besides the springy scallop, strips of conpoy, and minced chicken in sauce inside, there's also salted egg yolk, mushrooms, and the like. I still love it but, yeah, it's kinda heavy and feels like you just ate a brick...

Deep-fried radish cake stuffed with preserved meat (蘿蔔絲酥餅) - I'm glad The Great One requested this, as it's something I order almost every time I'm here. The pieces are on the large side, and inside the crispy puff was a filling made with delicious strips of radish and finely diced Cantonese preserved sausage.

Pan-fried pork cake with salty fish (鹹魚茸煎棋子餅) - the minced pork was kinda fatty, which made this all the more tasty once pan-frying melted the fat a little. I do love that pungent flavor of salted fish, which has traditionally worked well with pork.

Egg twist with citron honey (柚子蜜脆蛋散) - I do love how light this was and how easily it crumbled.

Deep-fried sesame glutinous ball (黃金煎堆仔) - apparently someone has never had these here, and was glad that I had ordered it, because THEY ARE JUST SO DAMM GOOD. Golden brown, with the fragrance that is unmistakably fried dough, yet so thin and light it just collapsed instantly.

I was pretty happy with lunch, and it's always good to catch up with Mikacina. I'm bummed that I won't see her in Seoul later this month, but I look forward to visiting her in the third quarter for the big day.