We have all benefited as a result.Ī little bit before Nom Wah and Hang Ah first opened their doors, Guangzhou became the premier destination for the ultimate in refined accompaniments to tea. The steady popularity of this Cantonese answer to brunch encouraged Chinese restaurateurs to open even more tea rooms, especially in metropolises with large Chinese populations. Nothing fancy was ever on the menu just good food. There they have dined on the same sort of honest, time-tested recipes as were once offered in the everyday dim sum shops of Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong province’s capital, Guangzhou. Local Chinese Americans have reveled in small Chinatown tea rooms and dim sum parlors - San Francisco’s Hang Ah and Manhattan’s Nom Wah Tea Parlor - for about 100 years. So, hunting down tea houses that know what they are doing is paramount. I’ve been there multiple times, and this is just as unappetizing - and embarrassing - as it sounds. Any delays will in fact cause the damp shrimp filling to soften up the bottom of the semitransparent wrappers, which means that as soon as you pick a slightly elderly har gow up with your chopsticks, the filling will explode out of the bottom onto the steamer, the tablecloth, your plate, and your front. More importantly: that lack of gluten means that har gow cannot sit around idly in a steamer, waiting for a customer’s order. It must be formed out of only wheat starch and water, and will steam up into a translucent pocket that the Cantonese refer to as seoi zing, or “crystalline.” But the key element here - and the part that most places get wrong - is the thin wrapper. According to old Guangzhou’s time-honored recipe for these dumplings, only a touch of lard and salt, as well as maybe a small sprinkling of tiny cubed bamboo shoots, should season the shrimp. However, the best of the best purveyors - like Peony Seafood in Oakland, for example, or Sheung Hei in Hong Kong - are worth seeking out, for when you bite into a perfect har gow, the flavor and texture of the sweet pink crustaceans will absolutely shine.
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