Dim Sum at Asian Court

Dim sum is one of our favorite restaurant meals. Like Spanish tapas, dim sum is basically a series of small dishes to be enjoyed with a beverage, in this case, hot tea.

We try to do dim sum every few months or so but don't actually get to Ellicott City as often as we'd like. It's a pretty filling occasion, so it probably behooves us that we don't gorge ourselves on dumplings too often.

Over the years, we've come up with a list of favorite dishes that we *must* eat. On our  most recent trip to Asian Court, long our favorite dim sum destination, we were lucky enough to get most of them within minutes of being seated. The servers wheeled their carts directly to our table before we were even properly situated and had requested tea, which is much better than having to wait for food.

The photos below are largely of our must-haves. This includes Chinese broccoli, cheung fun (steamed rice sheets filled with shrimp and topped with a sweet soy), salt and pepper shrimp, and soy sauce noodles (steamed and fried to a nice chew). I'm partial to the shark fin dumplings, which likely don't include shark fin, but do include a nice melange of meat and seafood. The hom sui gok, a chewy fried football-shaped glob of sticky rice dough stuffed with pork, are another favorite of mine. Mr Minx likes anything dumpling-shaped, so we make sure to order as many varieties of those as roll by. I find the siu mai (open faced dumplings) at Asian Court to be some of the best around. They're bigger than average, and their porky stuffing has a nice chunky texture.

Chinese broccoli

Cheung fun with shrimp

I'm the only one who eats the cheung fun (unless our friend LaRaine joins us). Apparently the soft and slippery texture of the rice crepe is an acquired taste.

Left front - shark fin dumplings, Right front - shrimp balls
Rear - siu mai

Front - steamed dumplings, Middle - har gow (shrimp dumplings),
Rear - soy sauce noodles

Spicy pork stir fry

We had never seen this dish before at dim sum, a stir fry of pork with scallions and snow peas. It was quite good, almost Grace Garden-caliber, and very spicy.

Lo mai gai (sticky rice in lotus) and hom sui gok (fried glutinous rice dumplings)

Salt & pepper shrimp - yes, you eat *everything* - shell too.

If you're a fan of Chinese food, particularly dumplings, you may enjoy dim sum. There aren't many places in the Baltimore area that serve dim sum. Zhongshan in Baltimore City does, and Asian Court in Ellicott City, but that's about it. There are plenty of places in Montgomery County, but we don't feel the need to drive so far when we have a restaurant that we really enjoy sorta kinda almost under our noses.

Asian Court
9180 Baltimore National Pike
Ellicott City, MD 21042
http://www.asiancourt.net/





Posted on Minxeats.com.