Qi: Divine Dim Sum

Five lunching ladies got together for dim sum brunch at Qi this past weekend.  Pretty much impeccable, from the decor to the place settings to the food, and especially the company as our group has bonded over food for many years now. And everything tastes better amidst friendship and laughter, though Qi's food and presentation does not need much assistance. 

From the entrance on 6th Street, the wine walls form two private dining areas.

Main dining area, with kitchen to the back and bar to the right.
 Could see a number of women preparing foods at the counter.

Our table, in the smaller of the two more private areas was called the birdcage table on our bill. Throughout the restaurant, there were beautiful embroidered Chinese robes on the walls. I would love a time to just study the decor in there! 

Beautiful plates, nice heavy crystal water glasses, and even the chopsticks had a nice weight and feel to them. 

In order of how we received the food. First up, sticky rice with Chinese sausage.

Snow pea shoots

Zha Jiang noodles, kind of a Chinese bolognese. I believe they said the meat was a combo of beef and lamb,
and you mix everything together before serving. Loved this!

The utterly divine crab fish maw soup dumplings. You could taste the sweetness of the crab meat. We should have ordered more of these! The accompanying sauces were soy, chili, and a light vinegar (plum?) with julienned ginger that was lovely with the soup dumplings.

Scallion pancake curry dip. This is the one dish that wasn't as great as everything else. The curry sauce was very flavorful,
 but the pancake was thick and almost tough, without any of the real flakiness I expect from scallion pancakes.

They changed our plates out partway though. 

Steamed barbecue pork buns; nice flavor in the pork.

Chicken with cashew dumplings. This isn't a dumpling combo I have had before, and I really liked them.

Shrimp har kaw.

The adorable little creatures are lobster dumplings with a hint of truffle in them, making them extra decadent!

Even the restrooms spared no design expense. From my travels to Japan, I have learned there is an Asian fascination with toilets. These had the motion activated lids, warm seats and automatic flush. (If you haven't used them before, you don't always know what to expect or even how to operate them at times!) Gorgeous carved wooden sink, very much a masculine-feeling space.

Here's our order. And it came out to $37/person with tax and tip. Not bad at all!

Qi was fantastic, and I can't wait to go back! Have you been and if so, what were your favorites?

Old Thousand Dim Sum

These photos of dim sum brunch at Old Thousand came out well, so thought I'd share! Oh, and the food was every bit as good as it looks!

Potstickers

Trout Rangoon

Brisket and Chinese Sausage Fried Rice

General Tso's Chicken 

Chicken + (Bubble) Waffles

Churro with Pandan Cream

Wu Chow Dim Sum

I finally made it to Wu Chow for dim sum! The downtown Chinese restaurant, from the Swift's Attic team, opened earlier this year on West 5th Street, six blocks west of Congress Avenue. While they are neighbors to the federal courthouse, there are touches of whimsy throughout that I appreciate. From the smiling dumpling faces on the sign board, to the goldfish bowl with a huge gold chain *bling* around it, to the chopstick wrappers, little touches to make you smile.

But more importantly, they take their dim sum very seriously, and they only serve it on Sunday mornings. They don't have the fun little carts with stacks of bamboo steamer baskets being pushed around the room, but rather an actual menu and wait staff service. Our team of four ordered a bunch of plates to share, and the overall verdict was eight thumbs up! The highlights are below.

The gai lan broccoli with oyster sauce was steamed perfectly; not overcooked and not bitter. The sauce had a touch of sweetness to it, and the crispy shallots were a good textural contrast.

The green onion or scallion pancake was much thicker and doughier than what any of us had seen before. It wasn't bad, just different, though I think I prefer the thinner, crispier, flakier versions better.

Char siu bao, or steamed pork buns with crispy chicken eggrolls with a gingery sauce. The bao were a perfect size and one of my favorites, and the eggrolls a nice switch up from the Americanized standard.

Shrimp fritters, which were nicely fried and not greasy.

The soup dumplings, which had a nice lighter dough and a very succulent broth that tasted like it has been simmered for hours. My close up picture where you really could see all the pleats didn't come out as well as I had hoped, so you'll have to make due here. Get the soup dumplings! $10, but worth it.

Turnip cakes with sausage; sometimes when you get these at other places they have a sheen of oil on them, but these did not.

One of the better sesame balls (or fritters) that I have had anywhere. Nice amount of red bean paste inside, but not TOO much, and like other items we had, devoid of grease. In the background are the egg custard tarts.

The dumplings had a nice sear to them.

Overall, I found the various sauces and broths to be full of flavor and not too salty, and fried items were not greasy. To me, these are the factors that help make each dish shine overall. The one disappointment was they were out of the Niman Ranch beef and chive turnover by around noon when we decided to add a few things to our order (and we got there at 11 am when they opened). After tax and tip, we each paid about $21, not that much more than you'd pay at a traditional dim sum spot. Plan ahead though, and make a reservation.

Finally, a great dim sum place in Austin that I don't have to go all the way up north for! What's the Chinese word for *hallelujah*?!

Fortune Dim Sum

Sunday noon, made the trek WAY up north to the Chinatown complex to try the dim sum at Fortune. My previous trip up there resulted in slight disappointment when we got there to learn, no they don't have dim sum on weekend evenings, just daytime (I had misread their website). So another trip was warranted to see just how good their highly praised dim sum is. (See my June report on Fortune here.)

The "grand ballroom" as it were, is set up well for dim sum carts to maneuver. It's a huge hotel-like banquet room, with a ton of ornate chandeliers, and those stackable padded chairs. Right as we were sitting, a cart was passing, and we immediately jumped on it.

The crispy-battered, fried green beans were one of the best dishes of the entire meal. Clockwise from there, the pan-fried buns were something we had never seen before; they were a light breading that appeared to have been steamed then pan-fried, and had a good pork filling. From their menu online, these might be the "Shanghai steamed buns," an item not normally considered for traditional Chinese dim sum. The rectangular item above were contained shrimp and a cream cheese type filling; lightly breaded and fried, they were similar to crab rangoon. In the top left corner, was the pork belly with sweet and sour sauce. Unfortunately this was served room temperature, and thus very unappealing. While the sauce was good, this was one large miss. To its right, was the BBQ duck, which was quite good. The skin was crisp, not real fatty, and the meat had good flavor, including the use of Chinese five spice powder. On the right are taro dumplings, which were stuffed with pork & vegetables; I love the light & crispy nature of taro; these were good, but greasy on the bottom. 

I jumped at these steamed spinach & shrimp dumplings, because I have never seen them shaped like this. It almost looked like they had been made in a muffin tin; I think from their menu, this is one of their shaomai offerings with crab roe on top. Needed scallions or ginger in it. The oval shaped dumplings are the haam sui gau, a rice flour dumpling filled with pork & vegetables. These were tasty, though a little soy sauce & chile paste kicked things up. 

At the 3 o'clock position, we have the baked BBQ pork buns, or char siu bau; not bad, but not enough pork filling in them for my taste. My friend who eats dimsum at Chinatown (the restaurant) a lot thinks Chinatown's are better.  At 6pm, sesame balls, which were deceivingly still hot (temperature-wise) on the inside; these had a mung bean filling that I almost burned the roof of my mouth with. At 9 pm, pan-fried turnip cake (probably daikon), which I didn't totally love, but I was still fascinated by it's gelatinous texture. And at 12 o'clock, we have something the cart pusher described as an almond milk soup. It was different. It seemed like Pepperidge Farms puff pastry on top, and then a very strong almond-scented broth of almond milk, sugar, and raw almonds. We think they had a heavy hand with the almond extract in this one, as it was a bit off-putting. 

Our slightly less-adventurous eater was happy to see some salt & pepper shrimp and some meat (pork?) & spinach dumplings go by. At this point I was filling up, so I didn't try any of these last two, but he said they were good. As you can see these were the whole shrimp, heads, tails & feet still on! We didn't try any of the rice noodle rolls (filled with meat or shrimp), though I saw plenty of them, or the crispy squid, which I did not see, but it's listed on their menu; there was a bunch of crispy fish pieces going around though.

I have heard from two Chinese acquaintances that they think Fortune is the best dim sum in town. Don't know that I am thoroughly convinced. I need to get back to Shanghai (on Middle Fiskville Road), where I haven't been in almost 3 years, because I remember that being incredibly good. Looking back at my previous post on Fortune and with this dim sum meal fresh in my head, I find their food to be fresh, but bland overall (the almond extract being the exception); everything needs more garlic, ginger, scallion, chile, etc. So the jury's still out on the best dim sum spot in town!