Given that, what I was expecting was an army of cooks, cranking out siu mai and har gow all week long and stockpiling them in freezers in anticipation of the weekend rush. But what I found instead was a surprisingly small crew of skilled workers who made just about everything fresh to order. They’d pull balls of dough from a master stash, hand-roll each dumpling wrapper, stuff it, and close it with a series of fine pleats. They’d fill the bamboo baskets faster than I had imagined possible, then load them into giant blast steamers, and finally stack them on the carts that toured the dining room. When a cart ran low, they’d just whip up dozens more baskets in an unhurried flash.
Impressed with the quality of all their standard dishes, from the many types of dumplings to specials like roast pork with a crackling skin and tender meat, I’ve been going there ever since. If you’re feeling especially brave, try my two personal favorites: the aforementioned chicken feet, which are fried first, then steamed with black beans until the skin and cartilage melt right off the bones; and the tripe, which is squishy-tender in a ginger-y, anise-spiked broth. The bustling and expansive dining room is also one of the nicer ones I’ve seen in the city—elegant enough that my wife and I considered hosting our wedding there (until we learned that they wouldn’t do dim sum for a large party).
