The Art of Dim Sum
A few GTA restaurants offer high-end takes on classic dish
It’s just before 10 a.m. on a sunny Wednesday morning and a handful of people are waiting outside Yu Seafood restaurant in Richmond Hill.
Head dim sum chef Steven Zhong and his six cooks have been inside since 7 a.m., folding dumplings, baking pastries, simmering congee and prepping the 60 or so items on the menu.
When the clock strikes 10 a.m., the front doors open and the eager diners file in, hoping to snag a few plates from the special, limited dim sum menu that riffs on current food trends, such as a steamed charcoal bun filled with a lava-like, sweet egg custard. Only 30 of these special orders are made each day.
“Dim sum is a piece of art,” says operations manager Day Wong and at Yu Seafood, it is treated that way.
In fact, when the restaurant opened in December 2015, it specifically went after a clientele who could appreciate the labour and artistry involved in creating dim sum and that was willing to pay for a quality eating experience.
It is an emerging market in what has traditionally been an inexpensive dining menu. A select few restaurants in the GTA are offering higher-end modern takes on dim sum in addition to the classics. Kwan Dim Sum in midtown has custardfilled dumplings shaped like bunnies and bumble bees; Dragon Boat Fusion in Richmond Hill has fried mushroom and foie gras rolls; Scarborough’s Casa Imperial wraps seared duck breast around zucchini; and the Crown Princess downtown on Bay St. serves delicate lychee-flavoured jellies shaped like chrysanthemum blossoms.
Wong is conscious of the artistry involved and plugged in to keeping up with the Instagram generation.
Watching shrimp dumplings being made from scratch from the pros is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. In the kitchen at Yu Seafood, on a wooden table no bigger than an average office desk, one cook lops off a small piece of dough and with a flick of the wrist, flattens it into a perfectly round wrapper that’s as thin and translucent as tracing paper. Zhong takes the wrapper, places a small ball of shrimp filling in the centre and with a shuffle of his thumb and forefingers, makes precise folds on the edges of the wrapper, each one the same length and angle, making the dumpling look like a fat paper fan.
From the time Zhong takes the wrapper and puts the finished dumpling with the others, about five seconds have passed. On a busy day at Yu Seafood, 500 of these dumplings will be made (about 7,000 in a month), and that’s just one dish on the menu.
“If you look at these hands, you’ll see a lot of experience by how they handle the food and how fast they work. It’s not just the recipes, you need to know how to move your fingers, how much pressure to apply when making the wrappers,” Wong says.
Most of the restaurant’s cooks are in their 40s and 50s and prefer an antiquated system of scales, weights and Chinese units when measuring ingredients to an electronic scale (e.g.: one catty equals 500 grams).
Zhong, 53, or “Fung” as he’s called in the kitchen, is originally from Guangzhou, China, and has been making dim sum for 30 years, about 20 years in Canada.
He jokes he got into making dim sum because while working in kitchens, he was told by his boss that his small hands are suited to making little dumplings, pastries and rolls.
“Yes, people have asked me (to teach them), especially young people,” Zhong says. “I’ve taught a few who have come in to learn. A lot of people have come through me in the last 30 years, and the art of dim sum has flourished.”
He says it takes a year or two to learn how to make dim sum. “But you won’t become the head chef, it’s just to be a regular dim sum cook. If you’re the head chef, it means you’ve been doing it for many years. You need talent, potential, time and effort to succeed in this industry.”
Zhong takes pride in his work, even though a basket of four shrimp dumplings costs just $5.20 at the res- taurant. Still, Yu Seafood is considered expensive among dim sum enthusiasts, with some restaurants in the GTA selling the same dish as low as $2 to fill seats on off-hours. “Dim sum doesn’t make money because of its high labour and food costs. It’s to generate traffic and get people in for dinner,” Wong says. “Nine out of 10 Chinese restaurants that do dim sum actually lose money and make the money back at night time.” So, Wong decided to draw in foodies with special dishes alongside the classic ones.
“We’re that one restaurant that can make money off dim sum, investing in marketing, staff and recipes. When you discount your price, you discount your quality and what you’re paying your staff,” he says.
Yu Seafood offers classic dim sum, but lets the chefs get creative with a limited menu of dim sum specials that changes every four months. For the fall menu, the restaurant dove into the charcoal trend making black buns brushed with edible gold and concealed with steaming hot sweet egg custard. Zhong also got playful with another item, shaping a fried pork dumpling to resemble pears with a piece of carrot for a stem.
“In Toronto, a lot of places don’t want to change,” Wong says. “We’re a bit lucky because our management group is very young and we adapt fast. We look at trends and what people want, asking customers what they want to see. You don’t want to go to the same place and have the same things every time.”
By 3:30 p.m., the cooks have finished dim sum service and begin cleaning the kitchen. In a separate adjacent kitchen, the evening cooks start preparing and the sushi chef stocks the fish counter in the dining room for dinner service.
It’s been a long day for the seven dim sum cooks who have made thousands of dumplings, rice rolls and other tapas-sized plates in the last eight to nine hours. While there are consumers who are reluctant to pay more for dim sum as competitors continue to offer inexpensive specials, Zhong is optimistic that good dim sum will always have a place in the culinary landscape. karonliu@thestar.ca
“We’re that one restaurant that can make money off dim sum, investing in marketing, staff and recipes.” DAY WONG OPERATIONS MANAGER, YU SEAFOOD