Dim Sum Icon

I'm sure you've seen it on FB and IG, you know those coloured buns shaped to look like piggies or have printed anime on them where the insides squirt out.  Well, we had spotted the place on our walk from LKF to the MTR the other night.  While we were on our way to Mak's Noodle, we decided to change our plans and stop at Dim Sum Icon to sample their whimsical treats and honestly, to take pictures and slap them on IG.  We were able to get a table, but had a time limit since they are very busy during lunch.

We selected mostly "interesting" dishes with a few traditional ones thrown in for good measure.  Our meal began with the cute-looking Pan-Fried Glutinous Rice Dumplings with Egg featuring what was essentially a Lo Mei Gai wrapped with a thin layer of egg rather than lotus/banana leaves.  It was good though with moist chewy rice with plenty of mildly-seasoned ground pork and dried shrimp filling.  Next, we had dessert (like always) with the Lover's Milk Tarts.  These were fairly silky, yet a bit firm.  They weren't too sweet though.  I would've preferred the shell to be the puff pastry version rather than the firmer type found in this one.

Off to a more standard item, we had the Deep Fried Squid with salt & pepper.  As boring as they appeared, this was one of our favourite items.  The squid tentacles were tender with a bouncy chew while the batter was light and crispy.  There was enough seasoning by itself, but the side of salt & pepper allowed us to adjust the flavour to our own liking.  Another normal-looking dumpling was the Truffle & Mushroom Dumpling.  On the other hand, it was unique in texture and flavour with a strong black truffle taste as well as the soft texture of the zucchini all encased in a glutinous wrapper.

We ended up getting 2 special versions of Ha Gau (Shrimp Dumplings) including the "Egg Series" with edible face prints on top.  I found these to be pretty good with buttery whole shrimp that had a nice bounciness.  They were not super aggressively seasoned, so I could still taste the natural sweetness.  The dumpling wrapper was relatively thin and had some elasticity.  With little characters on top, the Friend's Shrimp Dumplings were slightly more delicate than the other one.  It may have something to do with the elongated shape and seemingly even thinner wrapper.  The filling was practically the same, but it seemed a bit more buttery.

With the only difference being the colour of the rice noodle roll and of course a printed face, we had one each of the Egg Series Seafood Rice Noodle Roll and the regular Beef & Coriander Rice Noodle Roll.  Texturally, both were the same with semi-thick rice noodle that was soft and a bit floury.  However, there was still an elasticity to it which was good.  I found the shrimp to be cooked just right where it was mixed with imitation crab.  As for the beef, it was rather meaty with a natural texture that wasn't over-tenderized.  The amount of coriander was kept to a minimum where it didn't overwhelm.

We ordered a selection of whimsical buns including the Buriburi Zaemon Steamed Egg Yolk Buns, Friends Steamed Custard Buns and Shinchan Steamed Chocolate Buns.  These were really fun and cool to look at.  However, we were surprised to see that the buns were actually decent being fluffy with a relatively thin layer on the outside.  Inside, the yolk filling was okay being creamy and sweet while the milk custard was coconutty.  As silly as the chocolate filling was to see spewing from the "butt" of the character, it was too sweet and not chocolaty enough for me.

Back to the regular Dim Sum, we had the Steamed Pork Ribs with XO Sauce and the Steamed Chicken Feet with garlic sauce.  It was universally agreed that the ribs was not an edible dish.  The pieces of pork were far too fatty and sinewy for us to even chew through.  Also, it was not very XO-sauce tasting as it was more salty than actually briny and spicy.  On the other hand, the chicken feet were pretty good.  They were plump with tender tendon and cartilage underneath.  The skin was soft yet still had a bit of resistance.  Moreover, the flavours were impactful without being overly salty.

From the Descendant of Mars collection we had the Deep-Fried Shrimp with bread crumbs and Deep-Fried Dumplings.  Looking like fried elephants (due to the snout aka the shrimp tail), the deep-fried shrimp were large and crispy.  Underneath, there was a layer of moist and bouncy shrimp/fish mousse encasing the crunchy large shrimp.  The deep-fried dumplings ate very much like fried wontons with a firm crunch and a bit of shrimp filling (which was moist and had a sweet snap).  The googly eyes were neat, but were little nuggets of sugar that tasted weird with the other ingredients.

Also from the same series, we had the Deep-Fried Shrimp Spring Rolls.  This was less creative looking as only one piece was altered.  Hence, this was just really shrimp spring rolls.  However, they weren't bad though with a hot and crunchy wrapper holding in the same good shrimp filling we found in the other dishes so far.  On the same note, we had the Spring Rolls Wrapped with Rice Noodle which was essentially the same as a spring roll with rice noodle on the outside.  Okay, if you haven't noticed, the novelty of it all is the real draw here.  Yet at the same time, we though the Dim Sum was generally pretty good.  So it wasn't all about the cartoon characters and such.

The Good:
- Fun and novel
- Dim Sum is actually good
- Okay service

The Bad:
- A bit gimmacky
- Some items are repetitive