Dimsum de Chine

Here's my idea of an ideal Sunday in Beijing: Get up early at about 11am. Work off some calories with my 2-kg dumbbells. Pile back the calories with a lovely dim sum lunch. But with my favourite haunt having some kind of extreme makeover for the last few months and will open only in the new year, I have had to search for alternatives.

It has been a disappointing hunt. So disappointing that I shouldn't call it a hunt. I gave up after just one try. It was the darn Westin and despite charging a premium and having Chinese Cirque du Soleil-like acrobats performing in their restaurant, their dim sum sucked. The siew mais were lumpy, the egg tarts were lukewarm and the pork ribs were, gasp, undercooked. Even my grandmother could do better.


As you can see, the restaurant looked lovely. But I was there for the food and I expected better when I was paying more than S$20. That was some months back. I was disheartened. My ideal Sunday routine was in ruins. I could try harder to find another dim sum restaurant or I could sulk. Like any mature adult, I chose to sleep later and skip Sunday lunch altogether.

But fortuitously, on a wild night out to attack a Peking Duck, I realised that the bird restaurant Duck de Chine serves dim sum for lunch too. I did my mental Logic 101. Premise 1 - it was set up by a Hong Konger. Premise 2 - its duck is good shit. So Conclusion - Dim Sum must also be good shit. My university lecturers must be so proud of me.

So last Sunday, I re-embraced an early Sunday morning and popped lovely tiny pieces of exquisite dim sum into the Forbidden Stomach. It was, to be honest, not the best. But it was definitely more than competent. The chye tow kuay did not have Comfort Inn's crispy edges, but it was tender and did not overload the rice flour. I thought the bean sprouts was a nice touch too.

The standard dim sum dishes like siew mai and hakao were not bad either, having thin skins and fairly juice insides. And at Duck de Chine, you can never fault the service. Ever attentive staff, quick to top up my cup of chrysathemum tea. It was reasonably priced too, with quite a few items at half price. Me and my party of five paid about 80 yuan (S$16) each, no complaints. DDC's dim sum may not make the Dim Sum Olympics. But it is certainly good enough for, erm, the Asian Games?