Restaurants

By Charmaine Mok

Good dim sum can result in diners waxing lyrical about the restaurant responsible for days. And in the Chinese community, word of mouth travels quickly. Within weeks of Yum Cha opening, local families and savvy Chinese students had laid claim to the tables at prime dim sum time (12-2pm), despite the restaurant's less-than-shiny-and-new facade. (Inside, it’s a different story, with handsome wood detailing and a golden Buddha statue reclining in the centre of the room.)

Yum Cha specialises in dim sum, and we'd suggest sticking to it (the evening menu doesn't offer much choice, with a generic 'meat plus sauce plus rice or noodle' formula). The quality of the offerings lived up to the hearsay. The chefs, hailing from Hong Kong, have ensured that difficult-to-master dishes are executed flawlessly.

We were thrilled to see 'fried dough cheung fun' on the menu, a staple Cantonese breakfast item (not commonly found in the capital) of crunchy deep-fried dough wrapped in a thin layer of smooth rice noodle sheet, served with a light, sweet soy sauce. It was done to perfection; the contrasting textures were heavenly.

Pan-fried turnip cake was deeply golden-brown and crisp, a welcome contrast to the cold and pallid complexions of ones we've choked down in the past. However, it could have done with more flavoursome morsels of shiitake mushroom and wind-dried sausage. Classics were also competently rendered. The har gau's delightfully tender, elastic skins encased fresh prawns, though the shu mai had too high a meat-to-fat ratio.

Service went without a hitch, with attentive young waiting staff floating by occasionally to refill our tea cups – much appreciated. But the highest praise had to go to the mini egg custard tarts, so unlike the stodgy, sweaty and stale variety found all too often in other establishments. Yum Cha's version came piping fresh from the oven, the silken custard encased in perfectly flaky puff pastry. After scoffing down a plateful, we ordered extra for the road.

Time Out London Issue 1993: October 23-29 2008