Chandavkl says Dragon Beaux in SF is the leader for innovative dim sum in the US.

Braised Dalian Supreme Cucumber, Wilted Greens, Trout Roe In Taro and Leek Basket, Shrimp Roe Sauce

Supreme SEA Cucumber

5 posts were merged into an existing topic: 8 Tables and Mr. Jiu’s [SF]: The View From Hong Kong

Note: the moved posts were not specific to dim sum. Hence they were moved to the SCMP discussion.

Bird’s nest soup? We get ours at Costco. :wink:

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We get our sea cucumber and abalone n’ chicken soup from Costco also. Costco Kaohsiung. :wink:

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excerpts:

Dennis Leung, a former pastry chef and the general manager at Dragon Beaux, freely acknowledges the importance of Instagram. He’s seen the restaurant group’s social-media impressions rise 500 percent in the past few years. “Some people say it’s a gimmick, and we should focus on the food, but advertising has always been there,” he says. “With these colorful items, it’s one way to help us boost that advertisement.”

Dragon Beaux’s green matcha pineapple buns and black-and-gold steamed custard roll, Ng adds, may be new but reflect traditional Chinese culinary theory, which prizes appearance as well as aroma and taste. “We make them colorful to stimulate the eyes,” he says, but always with red rice paste, turmeric or spinach, not food coloring.

I’ll cross-post this article on the ‘Food Media’ board.

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I’ve not found attempts to make pastries colorful in general affects the taste much. Fancy hotel restaurants in Hong Kong make colorful dumplings with spinach, beet, etc. as the colorant. Taste similar to the colorless ones.

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Color largely won’t alter the taste, but it is part of presentation. Maybe like M&M.

You are right that it visuals alters taste perception.

This is not from Dragon Beaux, and in my mind, an example of the green and red colors actually make the dumplings less attractive to look at and to eat, although of course they taste the same as they would without the color.

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I will just say that though, that someone can use colorants to make dim sum look more attractive. I just hope they don’t use cheaper chemical colorants versus colorants from real food. I am no fan of all those Blue #1 Yellow #6, Red #40, etc. used in M&M’s and other food like mac and cheese. Banned in Europe. These should stay away from dim sums. I can’t imagine someone not using chemical colorants unless its very high end dim sum.

I agreed with you. I think most of the time, the colors do not alter taste. In your photo, I think the colors just look unnaturally bright. Subtle colors are interesting. Bright colors… They can instinctively scare some people – Aposematism.

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I don’t use colors as it is gimmicky and trust me most all these places use artificial colorants…I know because some have come to work for me and I disallowed it. The way to find out is the God’s way…taste it! If it’s green and spinach was used then you should taste the spinach, Black should be squid ink but Chinese don’t use it generally and black Sesame is relatively expensive. Red is beets or red rice yeast but again red dye is easier and orange should be carrots but who knows! Any colors at my place is all natural albeit not as bright and shiny as other places.

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Your colourful dim sum photo, aren’t those dim sum the “wellness series” of Ming Court (Hong Kong)? I don’t understand the logic at all (healthiness and colours), I must say.

Those pics are not mine…:slight_smile:

Yeah those are from Ming Court, though they were a little more muted in colors where I sat. I have no real issue with the use of color in these settings and nothing against how Dragon Beaux is doing it. Though I know Koi had those colorful XLB and I think Dragon Beaux had it. The colors were definitely not as bright as those seen in the Ming Court dumplings and I couldn’t say I was a fan of those flavors (beets, tumeric, etc.)

To get back to zippo’s point, I think internet in general has changed the food industry. A little for the good and a little for the bad. For Instagram to be specific, I would say it has shifted the dynamic from fragrance and taste to color and presentation. Afterall, that is what people focus when they look at Instagram. Not only customers are more focus on the colorful dim sum, but the chefs are also encouraged to make eye-catching dim sum to get the attention. The one who get the most attention is the one who will get more customers.

As for if this will lead to better dim sum? This will depend on the definition of “better”

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One place I haven’t seen mentioned (unless I missed it) that deserves a place in this conversation is Din Tai Fung. The branch in the South Bay is where I have had the best Dim Sum in recent years. Regarding Dragon Beaux, i have been to 2 or 3 times and had high expectations but was not wowed by the food. It’s not at the level of DTF the times I went. Especially disappointing we’re multicolred XLB which were meh. But I’ve been meaning to go back and give it another chance.

A problem I have noticed at many Bay Area dim sum places is a lack of QC. You will order the same dishes but quality will vary greatly on different visits. This is of course an issue at all restaurants but seems to be especially problematic at Bay Area dim sum places. This is especially an issue at KP in recent years (disclaimer- I haven’t been to KP this year yet). The congee at KP can vary from excellent to dishwater depending on the visit.

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Hmm, the only question I have with comparing DTF to other dim sum restaurants is what are your comparison categories? Are we comparing just the XLBs? The style of cooking is slightly different in DTF vs Dragon Beaux as one is Taiwanese versus Cantonese. That’s one reason why I do not compare the two for dim sum since I find them to be different styles.

Can you compare things? Definitely! However, I tend to judge dim sum restaurants by their siu mai, har gow, bbq pork buns, and their rice noodle rolls. Out of those items, I can only recall DTF having siu mai but I only had that twice in Arcadia which I thought was okay (I found it a little on the sweeter side but that was at least two years ago).

But what do you normally order at DTF vs. say Dragon Beaux?

Regarding the QC issue, I have heard that that dim sum chefs tend to move around somewhat frequently but others have a better idea on that.

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Yeah, I just ate at Tai Pan today, which I raved about months ago. Two out of the three dim sum items were pretty bad. Ugh.

Oh :frowning: That’s disappointing. I was thinking of trying that place actually but normally don’t’ drive that far south.