Ok, I’ve just come back from Toronto, where I had two dim sum lunches, one at a very high-end Chinese restaurant, the other at a very low-end Chinese restaurant, and both were better than anything I can find in Manhattan. Why?
The dining room at Lai Wah Heen in Toronto's Metropolitan Hotel.
Lai Wah Heen in Toronto’s quirky Metropolitan Hotel has, for many years, been my favorite place to have dim sum. It’s tucked on the second floor of the nondescript hotel. There isn’t even a sign outside. “Where are you taking us,” one food-critic friend I lured away from a food conference we were participating in asked as we walked through the ordinary hotel lobby and started up the stairs.
Lai Wah Heen is an elegant Chinese restaurant that isn’t trying to be “western” or “fancy.” The lunchtime menu offers innovative and traditional dim sum, both equally satisfying. What makes this dim sum worth its elevated price, besides the peaceful environment in which it is served and the exquisite tea that accompanies it, are the quality of the ingredients used and the obvious craft of the kitchen. Lobster, caviar, flying fish eggs, scallops, large shrimp, foie gras, shark’s fin, and other delicacies find their way into the dumplings and other steamed-to-order offerings. No dim sum I’ve had elsewhere can compete with the fineness and texture of the various wrappers and pastries that encase the delicately seasoned fillings. “This one is almost transparent, like glass” another food-writer friend noted about the crystalline wrapper on a steamed duck dumpling. The lobster dumplings come shaped as little lobsters. This is a special place. Dim sum came to about $50 a person, and no one seemed to mind.
Lai Wah Heen's lobster dumpling.
The next day, I joined my tai chi friends after class for lunch at Rol San, an all-day, every-day dim sum place on Spadina, north of Dundas, in Toronto’s original Chinatown. (As in New York City, there are now several Chinatowns in Toronto’s outskirts.) Here, too, the dim sum were steamed to order. But the freshness of the food Continue reading
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