When the waiter goes to collect our menu we ask to keep one in case we want to order more food. We order food and then drinks starting with half a dozen dim sum. They push us towards the cocktails with the slightly odd selling point that they're very light in alcohol and you can drink three and be fine with it (at $20 each perhaps not). There are actually three of these booths but I guess she was worried in case three tables of 7 come in over the next 60 minutes and want all of those booths (narrator: that would not happen). "Ahh no that seats 7 people," the woman says. "Can we sit there please?" I ask pointing at a comfortable velvet booth. We don't have a booking as it's yum cha (I later see that we can book but it requires leaving a credit card) but that isn't a problem as the restaurant is less than a quarter full this Sunday lunch. It's darkly lit and enormous with velvet banquettes, neon signs and floral wallpaper. We head upstairs to the first floor restaurant. There's a small, busy car park and we luck out as a car is leaving. We arrive at Macquarie Park and Jinja is located inside the Governor's Hotel. "OMG they're never going to want to go out with us again," I groaned to Mr NQN. Then our GPS pipes up and tells us that Jinja will close within 1 hour of us arriving there. "Aren't we meeting at 1pm?" I ask but then I scroll through my messages. So when Mrs Martin messages me at 12:30pm saying, "I'm so hungry! I'm just looking for parking," and we are pulling out of our driveway I do a double take. It's a leisurely, unhurried process and so I don't tend to schedule anything before 1pm on weekends. Mr NQN takes the dogs to the park for a long walk and I drink tea and then do exercise. Mr NQN and I have this routine on the weekends. It's a chilly spring Sunday and I'm getting ready for our first meal out with Mrs Martin and Martin, a couple that we met through Sammie. There is a selection of yum cha dumplings that are a bit different to usual offerings as well as a regular a la carte menu. The recommendations here overall are great! Keep them coming.Jinja is a new yum cha restaurant in Macquarie Park that offers upmarket yum cha in a darkly lit setting. I have yet to see different styles here in the Bay Area, but with more immigration, that might change. Heck after dim sum became popular in HK decades ago the mainland and Taiwan created their own versions and creative interpretations, often modifying or adapting classic versions to local tastes. Of course if you consider a more flexible definition of dim sum as Chinese tapas, there are many more dishes, like fried fish skin, curry fishballs, steamed small snails, Shanghai cucumbers, etc. Dishes like shrimp paste pulled pork in glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf, which hails from Cheung Chau. Even within HK there are many styles of dim sum that are unknown or even inaccessible to casuals. Old school dim sum has huge portions, and has hearty dishes that are oily and salty. However, for old world authenticity you might have to find a Tai Shan place in SF or Oakland Chinatown. They have really good beef balls (aerated and elastic), tea options, seafood dim sum, and are up-to-date on the latest HK dim sum styles. Hope you get a chance to expand your perspective, maybe try a chicken foot or two.Have a nice life.Īyoo dim sum is much more than just dumplings. My god lol just look on google maps and type in Dimsum, it’s ridiculous I feel so lucky to be here with all these options, especially after having moved away to cities that have a fraction of what we have here. Some take out dimsum new hwong kok in east side- was a favorite of ours in high school, li yuan, even king egg roll Koi palace- more expensive, but has some more upscale dishes, their crispy pork is really good, mayflower, jade Cathay, fu lam, Saigon harbor - they’ve changed owners but still great food. Since it sounds like you’re not from around here here’s a couple you can go try: dynasty- I went here with my family all the time growing up, classic carts experience. I hope you are will get the chance to experience more of the culture and what food the South Bay bc it sounds like you’ve never had that chance yet. If this were literally anywhere else,then ok I would want to know what’s worth going to.īut San Jose/South Bay and Asian food is best you’ll get. Just a quick look on google you can see 37% of San Jose is AsianĪll these people bring with them what is “authentic” to their culture. San Jose is an incredibly diverse city with immigrants from all over the world. Lol ok, I’m saying this is San Jose, have you seen our demographic? This isn’t some random town trying to introduce dimsum to people for the first time.
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