[Penang, Malaysia] Dim sum breakfast at ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐—ง๐—ฒ๐—ฎ ๐—›๐—ผ๐˜‚๐˜€๐—ฒ

Saturday morning yum cha today - I met up with a trio of local Penangite friends for a dim sum breakfast at Red Tea House.

My first time here - a very casual spot thatโ€™s popular among the locals in Bayan Baru, a densely-populated working-class suburb just half an hourโ€™s drive away from my place:

Thereโ€™s table service for tea and other drinks, but for food/dim sum items, one needed to join a self-service queue at the food stations:

What we ordered:

Penangโ€™s population is largely Hokkien/Fujianese, so Cantonese dim sum is never the forte of this state. Red Tea House offered a wide range of dim sum, which made this place quite interesting, but, taste-wise, itโ€™s far behind the top two dim sum places in Penang: Hong Xing @ Precinct 10 and Sea Queen @ Straits Quay.

Address
Red Tea House (็ด…่Œถ้คจ)
Lucasark Heritage Food Court
56, Lorong Nipah 4, Taman Lip Sin, 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia
Tel: +60 12-461 8959
Opening hours: 6am to 2pm, daily

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Weโ€™d certainly try bacon wrapped and century egg siu mai.

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The look is alright, maybe too many versions of siu mai. Iโ€™ve a feeling that some are quite spicy, i.e. not very Cantonese.

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Bacon wrapped sui mai? Oh, yes indeed.

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Not spicy here - the majority of their clientele are Chinese (not Straits Chinese like me whoโ€™d have preferred a bit of chili spice), so the dumplings wonโ€™t have any spice worked in, but hot chili sauce would be provided as a dip on the side.

That said, the flavorings/condiments (soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, etc.) used in preparing the dim sum items were more heavy-handed than the Cantonese would do - to satisfy the mainly Hokkien clientele here.

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Iโ€™ve a few Cantonese friends, that canโ€™t live without the dipping chili sauce, I suspect they eat more spicy than the northerners! :rofl:

How times have changed! My most enduring memory about eating in Hong Kong was during a 3-week business trip there in 1993. I was one of 3 staff sent from Singapore Airlinesโ€™ head office to review our HK officesโ€™ processes.

SIA had a main HK office in Queensway, one ticketing office in Central, and an airport office in Kai Tak.

The biggest challenge the 3 of us faced during the entire trip was looking for chilis, any chili! :joy::joy::joy:

For years afterwards, I never went back to HK again without bringing my own supply of chili condiments.

This is still a very small minority that likes spicy food. With Sichuan food and also XO sauce getting popular on tables, people eats a bit more, well, compared to the French. :laughing:

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