Customer Reviews

Dim Sum: The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just recieved my copy of Ms Blonder's wonderful "Dim Sum: The art of Chinese Tea Lunch". As with the earlier "Every Grain of Rice - this book is a visual delight.

Intrigued by the recipe for Char-Siu Pastries I decided to try them as an appetizer for a lunch party. After first preparing the pork, I was surprised at how clear the instructions were and how well the pastries turned out, warm out of the oven with a light flaky crust - I found the sweet taste of the Char-Siu and the hot meat inside made these irresistable. Next time I will know to make more.

I'm going to have fun with this book.

This `Dim Sum, The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch' is the second book from graphic artist Ellen Leong Blonder. The first three things which strike one about the book is that it is a smallish book for a fairly sizable subject, the author is neither a chef nor a culinary journalist, and that the design and illustrations in the book are exceedingly well done.

I always have problems rating small books which commonly give half the value for about two thirds of the price of full sized books. Since this is Ms. Blonder's second book on a culinary subject, and since her first book won an IACP Cookbook award, her being an apparent culinary amateur should cause no concern about the quality of the book's contents.

The book is divided into the following chapters:

Steamed Dumplings
Boiled and Pan-Fried Dumplings
Breads and Baked Dishes
Rice and Rice Flour Dishes
Greens and Pan-Fried Dishes
Deep-Fried and Bean Curd Sheet Dishes
Meats
Sweets
Sauces and Condiments

The book also contains small sections on types of tea, planning a menu, equipment and supplies, resources, and bibliography.

In a book this small, the bibliography becomes an important resource. The text states that some Dim Sum restaurants offer over a hundred dishes, yet this book has barely 110 pages devoted to often two page recipes. The book makes up for this sparseness in two very important ways.

First, it spends much of its space dedicated to Dim Sum cooking methods and equipment for steaming and deep-frying. It also gives excellent recipes for dumpling doughs and wrappers plus methods for folding dumplings.

Second, this book succeeds very well as a `feel good' book based on both the text and the color drawings, and the exceptionally good job of designing the book.

The greatest personal attraction of the book is the fact that it includes excellent recipes for baked `char siu bao' dumplings, something I often got at New Jersey Asian Markets, but which seem totally alien to the backwater Lehigh Valley. Having taken up cooking, this is one of the first things I wanted to try. The instructions for these baked filled rolls is a clean and you may wish. I have seen recipes in other books, which seem to require instructions on how to read the recipe.

If you love well-designed books or Chinese cooking, this book will warm your heart and your tummy.

This book saves me from the isolation and longing only a trip to Calgary or San Francisco satisfies. Now I can make these wonderful treats at home. Clear and beautiful instructions make this possible. I was lucky to find this book in our small town Montana library. I need it in my own.

I was skeptical about the book because of the lack of photographs and fewer-than-usual pages, but I was happily wrong. The dim sum selection is comprised of authentic items found in restaurants, so you can use almost every recipe. The color illustrations are actually better than photographs because the details, such as how to wrap dumplings, are easier to see. The writing is very straightforward, and there are helpful tips along the way. This is a great book!

This is a good starter book for dim sum. I didn't find the flavors completely authentic, but it is a pretty, user friendly book.

If you are serious about dim sum you must get Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's book about dim sum. It is out of print but you can still get used copies online easily. The recipes in there are absolutely amazing. Hint: if a recipe calls for lard you can use peanut oil instead.

Let me first say that I am born in Hong Kong and have literally grown up with Dim Sum. I view it as more than just great foods but also as part of a traditional family event. Much like Southern barbecue isn't just about the pork. I am giving this book a 4.5-stars rating

One thing I really appreciate about this book is that its small 2 pages devotion in tea. Tea plays a very important role in traditional Dim Sum. Dim Sum are the foods, but the entire event/experience of going to a Chinese restaurant, ordering Dim Sum and drinking tea is called "Yum Cha", which literally means "Drink Tea". In short, the book converses more than just recipes.

The recipes are not entirely authentic from two angles. It is not necessary a bad thing, but potential buyers should know where this book is coming from. First, a few of the traditional Dim Sum dishes, like Black Bean Sauce Chicken feet, are passed up for semi-western pastries like Mango Pudding. Second, the recipes themselves are not purely authentic. A good example is the recipe for Char-Siu Bao (Steam Cantonese BBQ Pork Buns). It only calls for cake flour. A more authentic recipe would have called for both cake flour and wheat starch. That being said, this book is much more authentic than many other books which simply call for all-purpose flour. I have altered 80% of the recipes I tried thus far because the final products differ from my recollection. Nevertheless, the book provides a good starting point for people who want to try making Dim Sum. The book also offers many vegetarian versions of the same dish. The pictures are wonderful. They are beautiful hand-drawn pictures of the Dim Sum, as well as the hand-drawn procedures, like the steps to pleat a Char Siu Bao. These hand-drawn procedures are cleaner and simpler to understand than photographs. The cooking instructions are easy to follow as well, assuming you have a basic knowledge in cooking and have read one or two cookbooks before.

Here is a dilemma for Dim Sum book. Many Dim Sum dishes are not simple. Most Chinese home cooks cannot make them. They are certainly not typical cookies which home cooks can easily make. As such, a Dim Sum book can be very authentic but >1% of home cook can follow or it can be very easy to learn but does not resume the real dishes at all. This book strikes a good balance between being authentic and accessible. It is not too daunting for a person to learn and the ingredients are not too difficult to find, yet it is authentic enough that readers will not be wasting time and energy in learning subpar recipes. Although this book is an introductory cookbook for Dim Sum enthusiasts, it is not a beginning cookbook. It assumes the readers have a decent background in general cooking. In short, it is a beginner book for Dim Sum, but it is not a beginner book for cooking.

I've been burned by alot of promising cookbooks in the past. But the recipes in this book work, with great tasting and great looking results (okay maybe mine aren't the prettiest Dim Sum you've ever seen, but they taste FANTASTIC).

Great little book. Simple, easy-to-follow instructions. I highly recommend it.

Did you know Chinese food is "the grandmother" of western, modern gourmand food? How is that so? Well, Marco Polo took it with him from China to Europe/Italy/Venice some 900 years ago. Then, by time, the famous Italian food develop and noodles became spaghetti, etc. Then some centuries later, an Italian Princess married the French King of that time. And she took all the best Italian cooks with her to France (several hundreds of them), and food changed again and became "The great French cooking".
Lets get back to "grandmother", because Chinese food is so good, as we all know!!! But do you personally know the taste of "Dim Sum" (dumplings)? If not, let me tell you: This small mouth watering bits are usually served at lunchtime in the western world, in China at breakfast as well.
If you don't know this Dim Sum, the greatest delight of soft and delicious tastes are awaiting you and, so far, you have never been into "the real heart" of Chinese cousin! Actually the word "Dim Sum" means "touch the heart" in Chinese language.
So for a starter get into a good Chinese restaurant at lunch time and ask for Dim Sum. Try "Ha-Gaw; Sui-Mai"; "Char-siu-bao"; Beef-balls; "Taro-dumplings", etc., and ask for tea in Chinese language. Say: "Yum-cha-a"!" (means "please serve me tea" in English), forget the soft drinks and Coke for some other time.
This Dim Sum Cookbook is fantastic! I envy this writer Ellen Leong Blonder's husband and family to have so good food every day. Ellen Leong Blonder is really an artist in both cook book writing, as well as the fine illustrator of this fine book, where all descriptions are carefully made out in pictures. And all recipes are carefully tested, so no trouble to cook them, as long as you follow the many different recipes step by step.

This is the best cook book of DIM SUM on the world marked today (I have some 22 different on Dim Sum food only, some rare and hard to find).

The writer Ellen Leong Blonder grew up within a large constellation of Chinese immigrant relations in USA. She learned from her family and friends and her interesting stories and descriptions just make you hungry, to try out everything as soon as possible.

If I personally was forced to go to a deserted Island and I could choose 10 books to take with me, this would be the first one, I purchased 3 copies of it: one for my own private cook book collection, one for my suite case (I travel a lot all over the world and occasionally cook for friends) and one last copy will go as a gift to a selected person who care for the best food in the world, to be given in the close future.

You will miss this book if you don't have it, and you can not live without it, when you owe it! It's simply the best cookbook on Dim Sum!!!!!

Per Gade (Mr.)
Denmark, England, USA & Japan.
Music Professor,
author of 56 books,
prize winner in international cooking and gourmand food,
for friends and special parties

This is a far better book than I had expected--possibly because my previous purchase in this field was Vicki Lilley's exceptionally amateurish and inauthentic effort. Although not comprehensive (see Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's Dim Sum book, especially the 1982 edition, which is far more encyclopedic, as is Mai Leong's), what recipes ARE included are very authentic indeed and extremely precise--which is certainly as it should be, given such a dainty culinary art form. In addition to the books noted above, I must say that my favourite dim sum books are the ones by Wei-Chuan Publishing of Taiwan, but their occasionally fractured English and odd measurements ("1/4 cup plus 1 T. plus 1 tsp.," etc.) would not make them everybody's first choice. Blonder's book is both sophisticated enough to be of interest to the dim sum initiate, but detailed and painstaking enough for the beginner.

Initially, I bought this book for the illustrations and possibly as a fun gift for the dim sum lovers in my family. Then I tried some of the recipes. YUMMY!!! Overall, the recipes are well written and come out just like the real thing. My favorite recipe is the steamed char siu bao. I make it at least once a month from scratch (including the meat) now that I have figured out how to fold it and keep the filling inside the bun (the hardest part of any dim sum recipe). I must warn you, there is one downside to this book. Eventually, your book will get lovingly worn out and you'll have to buy another one. Save time and buy two now.