it's king kogi here your friendly
neighborhood caucasian lady if you
haven't grown up eating it or you
haven't been introduced by friends or
family dim sum is one of the most
intimidating foods to try i would love
to help break down that intimidation
factor for you and give you a little bit
of an explanation about what you're
ordering how to eat it all that jazz if
you head on over to my personal youtube
page it's called king kogi i actually do
a review of my favorite dim sum
restaurant in toronto i've been going
there since i was a teenager and of
course during coldmore it made it a lot
more difficult so i did delivery and it
was still
amazing but for today on h kimchi studio
i'd like to tell you a little childhood
story all about dim sum so a lot of you
already know that i grew up with a
neighbor named mickey i did a video
about going to j town with her recently
and we had curry at her house and when i
was in middle school mickey and her mom
and i all went grocery shopping and for
lunch her mom took us to a dim sum
restaurant walking into this restaurant
was like nothing i had ever experienced
before first of all it was like
downstairs if i recall and when you go
in it's like a gigantic vast room
something that could host a wedding or
some kind of an event it was filled with
circular tables which was also very
unique for me and every table could hold
about eight to ten people there were
tiny circular plates and dishes and
weird little baskets of course these
were bamboo steamers but i didn't know
that and they were everywhere all over
the tables there were just three of us
and so they sat us at a table with
strangers and i had never before joined
a table of strangers to eat a meal
luckily the table is quite big so you're
not really sitting with them you're just
kind of sharing this this mutual space
but you can see what they're ordering
you can see all these little dishes on
their table and you're kind of like
what's this what's that what are they
doing when i looked over i saw these
white squishy looking buns they just
seemed like impossibly soft i saw these
like translucent seashells filled with
pink on the inside i find out later it's
going to be shrimp i saw these little
bowls filled with these little rolls
that looked like kind of crepes but like
super saucy i was completely out of my
comfort zone and really blown away as to
what i was going to be eating first they
brought us over a very humble looking
white pot of tea and we all had these
little tiny white glasses with no
handles on them which was unique for me
too waiters and waitresses were zipping
around zipping in and out of like a back
room and they'd come out with these
little silver trays and the trays were
just stacked with like dishes and steam
and like little baskets and i had no
idea what was going on mickey's mom
stopped a woman and just pointed and
asked for a bunch of these little dishes
and she would just like point at it and
they would just put it on the table in
front of us when had i ever gone to a
restaurant when there wasn't really a
menu present where you just picked
things off of a cart as it went by it
was almost like a buffet in reverse like
you sit at the table and they bring you
the items i also noticed that even
though i saw the same lady come by she
didn't have the same stuff on her tray
some stuff looked like little tiny
custard tarts some things looked like
they might have been spicy i couldn't
tell what the differences were in front
of me on the table were these little
tiny bottles that looked like all these
different potions of sauces so one of
them was the soy sauce that mickey
poured for me in a tiny little plate and
then there was like a spicy looking oil
and then another darker one which i
found out later as a type of vinegar and
there were like tiny little spoons and i
just had no idea how to put these
together later on i learned that this
type of restaurant where people are
pushing these little trays going to the
back kitchen and getting fresh items and
bringing them out is a very traditional
way that dim sum restaurants use to work
but apparently a lot of them don't do
that anymore instead have a piece of
paper and on the piece of paper you can
see the item that you want to order and
you'll write a number or a tally so if
you want one of that item you just write
one if you want two you write two and
then you hand that paper to a waiter or
waitress they'll bring it to the kitchen
in the back and then they'll bring out
the dishes kind of bit by bit or all at
once depending on what you've ordered
well you guys it was shockingly
delicious it blew my little fragile mind
i tried shockingly delicious morsels
things that were stuffed with plump pink
shrimp and they had chewy outside
noodle-like textures but it wasn't quite
pasta and it wasn't quite sticky and
gummy i couldn't place my finger on what
this texture was of course a lot of dim
sum is made with things like wonton wrap
whappers wonton wapas things that are
made with like potato starch or maybe
tapioca starch things that are kind of
more rice papery so it has that kind of
pull that texture to it kind of similar
to when you have mochi and mochi has
that pull that bounce but not as sticky
this was just a texture that i had never
had before and it was delightful i had
these yellow steamed things stuffed with
ground pork and shrimp that you dipped
and bit into and it was like these
little mini meatballs but they didn't
taste like the meatballs i was used to
having i had these soft white buns and
when you pulled them apart inside it was
filled with like a pulled pork in a
sweet and kind of savory barbecue sauce
i even had to take a leaf and open up
the leaf and inside of it was rice and i
had never seen such a huge leaf in my
life i will explain this leaf in my
video on king koki by the way oh and
they even had dessert they had custard
tarts they had buns filled with sweet
stuff on the inside i even had tofu that
tasted like almond but like a sweet
almond and you kind of scooped it out of
a bowl all these things were like what
what is going on what this exists it
felt like this underground culture that
i had no idea about well now you can see
how foodie martino was born i had all
these interesting experiences at a young
age that made me feel like there was
more out there in the world food wise
and i definitely have a big thanks to
mickey and her family for introducing me
to so many different things along with
all my other neighbors who were from
different places around the world and so
i was able to eat their food for
breakfast or their food for lunch and go
wow is this canadian food or it's not
canadian food well it's kind of canadian
food it's very confusing but luckily
toronto is such a multinational city
marcum toronto mississauga all these
different places have different tiny
little boroughs so you can go to like
chinatown you can go to little italy you
can have african food from all types of
places in africa you can have indian
food from all over india it's just such
an incredible wonderland of food later
on in life when i went to beijing and
taiwan i had the chance to try dim sum
over there as well and you know i was
pretty blown away at how legit the dim
sum was in toronto and in markham i mean
it didn't taste that different obviously
the ingredients are different because of
that whole like you know terroir thing
like where something grows affects the
produce having an orange in japan or
having an orange in korea is different
than having an orange in florida or in
toronto you can't help it the soil the
earth the water how you feed it that
will help change the taste of things so
having dim sum in other parts of the
world of course has a different taste
because they're using local ingredients
but having dim sum in toronto it wasn't
that far off the market it was pretty
legit dare i say too legit to quit too
legit
too legit
please tell me somebody no somebody
knows what i'm talking about please now
historically dim sum was actually made
to accompany tea so people that speak
cantonese might call it yamcha and i
know i'm going to butcher all this stuff
because i don't speak cantonese or
mandarin i've only spoken korean and
japanese and so they are not the same so
many diphthongs and and vowels that i
didn't know existed from different parts
of the world in different languages so
yumcha literally means drinking tea and
travelers would be traveling through
china and they would stop at these
little restaurants to have tea kind of
like how we might stop to have a coffee
and they started to invent these little
tiny morsels that they could have with
it apparently dim sum is like 2
500 years old and it's like historically
talked about in poems and songs like
that's pretty amazing nowadays dim sum
is so popular that there are a lot of
places that serve dim sum as their only
thing that they serve all day long but
there are still places that will only
serve dim sum for example on sundays in
the morning or places that will only do
it in the morning specifically it's
almost like a breakfast meal so if you
do head off to a dim sum restaurant in
your neighborhood make sure you check
their hours to see if they're actually
serving all day dim sum or not so for a
first timer going to a dim sum
restaurant it can be absolutely
intimidating so i want to share with you
just a few of my favorite items that i
order and i would love for you guys in
the comment section to talk about your
favorite items as well and i'd also love
it if you let people know what city
you're in and maybe the name of your
favorite restaurant and that way people
can kind of look it up online and go
find it on their own i apologize in
advance for my pronunciation first up
har gao these are shrimp dumplings and
they have been steamed instead of fried
so when you're used to having a dumpling
that has that crispy exterior this one's
going to be translucent that was like
that seashell shaped one that i saw a
really good har gao the outside has not
been overcooked so if it tastes like
gummy or like falls apart and the shrimp
is pouring out then it's been over
steamed chun fun these are
fat
rice noodles inside of it they put
either shrimp or they put beef or they
might put pork and it's rolled up like a
crepe and that's steamed and then
they'll often serve that with like a
sauce on top that's kind of like a sweet
soy sauce if i had to describe it sumai
this is also called shumai sometimes
it's an open-faced dumpling so it's a
yellow wonton looking wrapper and they
put the meat in the center so it's
ground pork and shrimp and they put it
in and they close it like this at the
top you can still see this is what i
thought was a meatball when i was a kid
it's quite smooth and ground up and the
flavors are just fantastic low bakau
also known as radish cake daikon when
it's all ground up they put it together
in like a little flat patty cake that
almost looks like a hash brown and
resembles a hash brown in texture and
sometimes they'll throw little bits of
like meat or like sausage or bacon in
there and they pan fry it turnip cake is
so
good i never ordered it before because
the word cake makes me feel like it's
gonna be sweet but it's not it is savory
think of it like a savory hash brown i
had one in taiwan that blew my freaking
mind it's become my bar like the bar of
daikon cake daikon cake radish cake and
um nia i fear that i will never be able
to reach that daikon cake ever again i
will have to return one day luckily our
friend's there ryan and phoebe i'm
coming to crash it's your place lomiji
or no meiji it's like a huge leaf and
inside of it is like a glutinous rice
gluten this is just another way to say
sticky rice and it's been steamed inside
the leaf and it has little bits of
chinese sausage in it which i explained
more in my video on king kogi smells
amazing and it tastes amazing and it's
so intimidating if you've never had to
eat food from a leaf but don't miss out
on it it's so good if you'd like to hear
my review of dim sum head on over to
king kogi on youtube that's where i'm
putting up the video of me chowing down
and eating all my favorite types and i
hope i can inspire you guys to head out
there and try some of this food because
uh it's so good and it's gonna blow your
freaking mind think of it like a spanish
tapas the way that you're sharing it
it's like little tiny dishes that you
share with lots of friends and family or
if you're like me you can just eat it
alone because
you're a foodie let me know in the
comment section below what your favorite
dim sum is and please again share your
favorite restaurants and what city
you're in because maybe you'll help
someone go out there and explore all
right guys how do you sign off from this
stuff i don't know see you on the
internet
i mean i guess we're on the internet so
can we just talk about loki i'm not
gonna say anything i'm not gonna do any
spoilers loki