Story and photography by Manos Angelakis

Red Egg
202 Centre Street,
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 212.966.1123)

The Eastern Mediterranean has meze, the Iberian peninsula has tapas and pintxos, and Southeastern China has dim sum (touch the heart), a collection of little dishes served in steamer baskets or plates that contain small amounts of food.

The origins of dim sum are associated with yum cha (tea tasting) an old tradition where filled buns, cakes, fritters, steamed or fried dumplings and other cooked tidbits were offered to travelers along with different types of tea in teahouses along the Chinese end of the ancient Silk Road.  The original cuisine is Cantonese, but Hong Kong and Taipei have adopted modern yum cha, and are now considered the top creators of dim sum dishes. Some other Chinese cuisines – Shanghainese cold dishes for example - have also contributed their special creations to the tradition, and at present dim sum, as offered in New York City, is actually a collection of small plates from around China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

There are two types of establishments that offer dim sum. Either very large restaurants that can serve hundreds of customers at a time, where servers push small steam carts around the room, showing to the patrons what the kitchen has to offer and serving  plates from the cart. There are usually mostly large tables for 10 persons in these establishments, and – if you are only an individual or two - you may have to share the table with other persons or entire families. The plates have different shapes, sizes and colors and each indicates the price of the particular dish (same priced dishes share the same shape and color). The empty dishes remain stacked on the table, and at the end of the meal the plates are counted and the bill is thus calculated. The other type of dim sum restaurant will present you with a printed list of the offerings – which will give you a better idea of variety, ingredients and price. You indicate on the list what and how many items you wish, and the kitchen will prepare these dishes fresh for you. It might be a bit more time consuming waiting for the freshly made dishes, but the food has not spent time on a steam cart loosing texture and taste.

Red Egg www.redeggnyc.com is one of these last type of restaurants. It is an intimate restaurant  located a block and a half north of Canal Street. Recently reopened after a long renovation, it is stylish, with a subtle Hong Kong-styled black décor with red accents, mirrored walls and ceiling, and a long bar. The day we had lunch there, there was a considerable mix of upscale clientele having dim sum, both Oriental and Occidental. For lunch, they offer 50 of the dim sum dishes, while after 3pm (which is very traditional for a dim sum establishment) they offer about 20 small plates, plus a large variety of regular Cantonese- and Hong Kong- style fare.

Both Barbara and I love dim sum, and we have spent many long lunches in New York City, San Francisco, and Hong Kong exploring this delightful cuisine. In fact, Barbara just returned from a trip to Taiwan, and, according to her, the dishes at Red Egg compare vary favorably with the dim sum she had there (see Din Tai Fung in Taiwan story).

One other thing I should mention is the bar and wine list. The bar offers a variety of cocktails – look for a list of specialties on the table. On the other side of the list there are wines by the glass, and amongst them I saw a couple that I know pair very well with dim sum, like the “Blue Fish” Riesling from Germany, the “El Portillo” Sauvignon Blanc from Argentina, and the Pinot Noir “Charmarre” from France. If you prefer wine by the bottle, there is a small wine list available with some nice Cabs and Pinot Noirs from California and a variety of whites from Italy, California, Chile, New Zealand, etc.

We were there for the dim sum, so we tried to avoid the temptations of the larger plates. But, we could not really pass on a favorite – lettuce wraps with diced chicken, vegetables and peanuts. So, we asked for a half-portion of this smoky delight, and it was delivered to our table. Ambrosia!

The next dish was Roast Pork Buns, a Chinatown staple, filled with roast pork chunks flavored with a mixture of oyster sauce, haixian sauce (better known as hoisin sauce), and soy sauce. Three silky bread buns bursting with the roast pork. Then came a plate with three pan-fried pork and green chive dumplings. This was the first time we tasted these dumplings and we will make sure to order them again wherever we see them on a menu.

The next item was steamed shrimp and pork sui mai (also known as shumai, or shaomai) in a bamboo steamer basket. Good sized dice of meat, shrimp and water-chestnuts, wrapped in paper thin dough. Together with the sui mai came vegetarian spring rolls i.e. shredded vegetables and cellophane noodles wrapped in a crisp fried phylo, served with a sweet “duck” sauce. Both dishes disappeared in seconds, even though Barbara complained that the spring rolls were a bit greasy for her. But the next dish - small rolls of ground shrimp, also wrapped in the crisp-fried phylo dough - came and it was absolutely greaseless and very delightful.

We went through numerous more dishes, including lamb chops glazed with soy, oyster and  haixian sauce blended with a little sugar to create a flavorful, slightly sweet taste; half a Peking Roast Duck that was cut tableside and was served on flavorful white-flour buns instead of the usual flat pancakes; and a number of others. Most of the dishes are subtly flavored, and utterly delicious.

The final piece de resistance, at the suggestion of Shirla, the Red Egg hostess, who proved invaluable in providing ingredient- and cooking- method information, was the Coconut Pudding, served in a fresh coconut shell.

We thought that Red Egg is a better restaurant than some of the many other mass catering restaurants serving dim sum in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Certainly the ambiance is more refined, the dim sum quality is superior, and the freshly prepared dishes better than the steam-cart ones.   

© August 2010 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.