Monday, July 17, 2006

"New Chinese" Restaurant in Hamilton NJ

You know those scary-looking Chinese restaurants that seem to be in every town. Well, this one in Hamilton, next door to the House of Meat halal butcher, came recommended, so we checked it out for Sunday dimsum/lunch. The menu was promising, as it had some regional dishes beyond the standard General Tso's white-man fare -- and it had great Engrish.

Our meal: (pictured right) chive boxes, siu mai (these strangely were filled with sticky rice), and (not pictured) cold jellyfish with daikon, mock duck, shrimp dumplings, cold sesame noodles, steamed juicy buns, ma po tofu, yu xiang eggplant, stir-fried rice cake. (Incidentally, the 2 Chinese people in our party argued with the Korean about who exactly invented the sticky rice cake - anyone who knows feel free to weigh in.)



Everything was tasty, but the stand-out dish for me -- the dish I'd go back for -- was wuxi spareribs, which you rarely see on your typical Chinese restaurant menu. Wuxi is a city in Jiangsu province south of Shanghai best known for its earthenware teapots; I think the place has really good clay. Anyway, I don't even know how exactly these spareribs are prepared, but they are the specialty of this city (like Kansas City or St. Louis ribs in the US). Falling off the bone and melting in your mouth, they have the sweet flavor favored by Shanghai cuisine. (And here's a picture from inside The House of Meat for those of you who are curious.)

4 comments:

1000yregg said...

i've had the sticky rice variant of the shu mai before at other dim sum places. my vote is chinese for the sticky rice cake - we invented pasta and pizza already anyways.
and also, mmmm. . . ribs. . .

Anonymous said...

perhaps that is true - the chinese may have invented the "rice cake" before the koreans, but rest assured, the japanese did not invent it. wherever its orign, rice cakes sure are yummy.

Anonymous said...

i think i'll have to eat dim sum this weekend—it's been awhile and your post inspires a craving. i think i'm going to start blogging about my favorite eateries in Honolulu soon...this is fun to read :D

Anonymous said...

oh, but I'll hold on the cold dick... (did I really just write that?!) ^_^