Macau Dim Sum
Enter the Dragon
- Rato (Linha Amarela)
- €€
- Rua Dom João V 31B, 1250-096
Lunar new year 2024 brings us into the year of the Dragon, so for us this meant only one way to celebrate, yum cha at our favourite dim sum house, Macau Dim Sum.
There is no secret to our love of food from China, and we came to Macau Dim Sum on our first holiday to Lisbon long before we moved here. It's not just extremely popular with us, but equally with Portuguese and Chinese alike. Typically you can turn up and walk in and get a table, but lunar new year is different beast (literally) so with our table reserved we joined the celebrating throngs of all nationalities and ages.
Everyone has their favourite dim sum, so it's not for us to tell you that any one dish is better than the other, but we have our go to staples regardless of where we are in the world. These are pork siu mai, har gow, cheung fun and of course, the eternal champion, char siu bao.
There's been a real explosion of dim sum on menus all over the world recently and, ninety per-cent of the time, this means the host is steaming up industrial amounts of frozen wares from the local Asian megamarket. This sucks. Done properly dim sum far outstrips tapas, sushi and the god-forsaken trend for 'sharing plates' when it comes to texture and flavour variety in a meal made of many smaller dishes.
The reason we come back to Macau Dim Sum time and time again is the evidence of freshness in the little bites of heaven. This time around the har gow really stood out for the blast of prawn delicately cased within its starchy shell. The pork siu mai delivering the carnivorous pleasure of deep pork and the char sui bao buns so light, marking them out from the imposters from the frozen aisle, dense with the absorbed ice.
Lastly we supplemented with a crispy fried noodle with mixed vegetable, seafood and meat topping given the feasting nature of the day. Rich in the gelatinous MSG goo that gives so much Chinese food its excellent flavour*, it provided a fitting, belt-loosening end to the whole affair.
Happy new year everyone.
Don’t forget to order: Choose your favourite dim sum and go wild. The Peking duck is also a masterpiece here.
