Oh woe is me! My go to place for Yum Cha or to eat Cantonese dim sum Golden Pond closed late last year. I shed a tear, it had been our family favourite for decades. The Golden Pond has turned into Shanghai Blues, a Cantonese Sichuanese hybrid. But the jury is still out on the quality of the dim sum. It certainly isn’t as good as it was before the change. Some of the items at GP, in particular the steamed chicken feet in black bean sauce 豉汁鳳爪 and deep fried squid 炸魷魚鬚, were better than I’ve eaten in good Hong Kong dim sum places. It was cheap too, no matter how much we ate it was impossible to spend more than tenner!
So from the pool of also-rans in the Birmingham dim sum stakes who will now come out on top? At the moment the front runner is Chung Ying Garden the sister restaurant to the more prominent Chung Ying. It edges out Ken Lo next to the Hippodrome. But more careful sampling of the rest of the competition is required before a winner is declared; a revisit to the once atrocious but now apparently excellent China Court may prove decisive.
Chung Ying Garden have special prawn dumplings in the shape of rabbits! Which makes me think that to address the balance they should make rabbit dumplings in the shape of prawns.
Chung Ying Garden
17 Thorp St, Birmingham B5 4AT