Dim sum

Yesterday was my grandma's birthday, so we brought her to dimsum today in Flushing. The place is called 廣州酒家/Guang Zhou Restaurant on 37th Ave., right up the hill from Joe's Shanghai. Supposedly my parents think it's the best dimsum place, but I still want to try the one across the street, called 明都/Jade Palace that other people said was the best they had.

First some people pics. Here's one of my grandma, dad, and mom:


Picture of me & my brother:


Picture of me, my brother, grandma, & dad (not sure why they don't like to smile in pictures):


And here are pictures of the food! This place had some pretty unique dimsum dishes in addition to the traditional ones. Some of the pictures are of half eaten dishes, but that's because I forgot about taking pictures until after someone's already dug in.
A "group" picture of some dimsum dishes...the yellow roll cake is 馬拉卷. The plate to the upper left corner is 裹蒸粽...rice wrapped in bamboo leaves with meat, chestnuts...it wasn't the best. The rice tasted kinda powdery...blah. The dish under that is 潮州粉果...dumpling with leek, peanuts, meat. The last dish is 豆苗餃...snow pea tips dumpling. This had a very light snow pea tips flavor, had shrimp in it too. Pretty good.


叉燒包/Steamed Roast Pork Bun. They seem smaller in size than most other places, but still not bad.


山竹牛肉/Steamed beef meatball. I'm used to seeing three lumps of meat, rather than 4 smaller lumps, but it was still decent. The water chestnut pieces could've been smaller since I don't ever remember those pieces falling out. Now that I think about it, this is one of the few dishes that I need sauce on...o急汁/Lea&Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce or else it wouldn't taste right.


燒賣/Shumai. This tastes just like any other shumai from other dimsum places, nothing special.


炸両/Fried dough wrapped in rice flour sheet. Not even sure if the second Chinese character is the right one, but I've never really seen it in writing...that's how it sounds in Cantonese. Basically it's 油條 wrapped in the same rice flour mix they make 腸粉/Rice flour sheet(?) with. In addition to some sweet soy sauce drizzled on top, there's also some sesame and hoisin sauce on the side.


蝦腸(粉)/Shrimp in rice flour sheet. This dish also has sweet soy sauce drizzled on top.


蝦餃/Shrimp dumpling. These are huge! The filling can be seen through the clear wrapping, and it's bulging out! Tasted better than most places...


Now for the dishes not readily available at other dimsum places.
排骨鳳抓飯/Stemed rice with spareribs & chicken feet. This dish brings back memories...my mom & I used to order that every time we go have dimsum before she drops me off at school in the afternoon. This also came with sweet soy sauce to drizzle over the meat and rice. The rice and meat are steamed together in their individual containers so the flavor seeps to the rice. Very similar to 煲仔飯.


灌湯餃/Soup drenched dumpling. My brother & dad each ordered one of these. It comes with a little bit of red vinegar + baby ginger to get rid of some seafood taste. The dumpling pretty much takes up the whole container. It's filled with lobster meat, veggies, and other stuff.


西米布甸/Tapioca Pudding. It was a little too sweet, but interesting. It tasted eggy, the top reminded me of the 葡國蛋撻/Portguese Egg Tart from 大班/Taipan Bakery.


榴蓮酥/Durian Pastry. This was surprisingly good! Never seen it at other dimsum places before. The filling had the distinct Durian flavor, but not too strong. It was the first thing we ordered, and probably the last thing we ate. The crust was flaky as it should be and the filling was still warm!