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2010-07-12
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Take a concept, open a shop, and you get the attention from many -- neighborhood diners, travelling foodies, and also, the press.Take the same shop, multiple by 50, with different varieties of dishes. The repertoire has expanded, but so are the risks leading up to failures. The menu is now filled with attempts to re-create old traditions, only to fail because the creators, or makers themselves have only experienced the traditional ones on paper and not on their tastebuds. Such have been the case
Take the same shop, multiple by 50, with different varieties of dishes. The repertoire has expanded, but so are the risks leading up to failures. The menu is now filled with attempts to re-create old traditions, only to fail because the creators, or makers themselves have only experienced the traditional ones on paper and not on their tastebuds. Such have been the case for tea parlours, and shops selling eggettes, and fishball noodles as well, and up until recently, dimsum shops.
Bird and Basket is located along a busy street in Prince Edward. The two-storey high shop catches some attention overlooking other eateries on the same street. Selling dimsums, the glass sliding door and windows have been laden with laminated newspaper clippings. The wooden furniture, matching with beige walls and drawings of peach blossoms spreading across the sides, exudes contemporary Chinese decor much like an attempt to resemble tradition with a twist. On one wall is the menu with each item and its prices in plastic signs. There are some photos on the ordering sheet, but not all are covered, perhaps only the ones they recommend?
The two of us shared a few dimsums. Starting with Barbecued Pork Pineapple Bun, which are the sizes slightly bigger than a baby's fist. The soft bun, crowned with the golden crisscrossing pattern of buttery crust on its canopy, is aromatic with a puff of sweetness from both the crust and the barbecued pork filling. Taking a bite into the bun, getting past its crumbly sweet crust, the barbecued pork filling was only warm. In fact, 'warm' didn't cover the whole truth. 'Tepid' was a better word for it. Some of the best barbecued pork buns I've had had near-molten filling with cut up pieces of barbecued pork -- lean with tiny bits of fat mixed throughout. The sauce should also be dark and rich but this one is dark alright, but nowhere near rich with the sauce. It was, however, quite sweet and the barbecued pork pieces were on the leaner side. The bun, however, is softer but did not get "sticky" between chewing.
Wasabi-Seafood dumplings are translucent dumplings that resembled the crown top of a flattened Napa Cabbage, with its pale jade green colour benefited from the use of wasabi mixed into the wheat starch wrapper. The wrapper was only slightly sharp with heat, while the filling within consisted of cut bits of prawns and scallops, and a potent lump of wasabi. Its texture resembled to that diluted with water from powder. The wasabi was so pungent that everything else in the dumpling lost their flavours, as they were all replaced by the sharp sting from the grated root (even sharper with the powdered mix, almost like too much horseradish in one dose)
The Pig-Liver Shaomai used to be a traditional dimsum -- lumps of pork and chiken topped with a gossamer slice of pig's liver and steamed. The pig's liver was supposed to be rich and tender, yet this one failed to deliver the ideal texture. The liver bears a shade of greyish brown while the chicken was in turn not marinated through, and its taste clearly reminded diners that the chicken has lived long enough in the kitchen's deep freeze. There was also too much of a glaze across the top, but that could be helped and fine-tuned if the liver was not as tough, the kitchen staff probably wouldn't need to try masking the appearance with a transparent gloss of a sauce.
Steamed Brown Sugar Cake rounded up an otherwise so-so meal of dimsums. The yeasted cake was obviously quite sweet compared to its paler kin in other dimsum restaurants. The cake itself was moist with a faint sugary taste resembling the demerara sugar. There were times when we wanted to order more dimsums, only to stop and ponder on the possibilities of being wooed by any other dimsums on the menu. The couple on the next table complained about the non-molten interior of the custard buns (fried of steamed, neither were molten inside)
Having opened for quite a while now, Bird and Basket has attracted some attention from foodies and members of the press to cover their array of dimsums. While they failed to impress with the more innovative side of dimsums, it is suggested that maybe they can start with the basics all over again...? After all, the basics are always easiest to impress, and hardest to master.
张贴
