Monsoon - Seattle, Washington
Arriving at Monsoon at just about 9:30 am, I was surprised to see that the restaurant was still closed. The website did say 9:00 am, didn't it?
I stepped through the door, only to be told that the restaurant would be open at 10:00 am and that I could return later if I wished. Later? I took a cab there and once I left, I wouldn't be back. So when I told the waitress that I would be waiting, she directed me to the cafe across the street since she didn't have anything to offer me.
As soon as 10:00 am came around, I made my way across the street just as the sign was being changed from "closed" to "open".
Since I had already waited for a little more than a half hour, I was happy to be the restaurant's first customer of the day. I selected a table in the corner of the room and proceeded to review the menu.
Many of the dishes seemed interesting and at the last moment, I almost decided to have something other than the dim sum that I came for. Since the list of dim sum offerings was short (7 items), I ordered one of each item and a pot of tea (ti kuan yin, US$4.00), then sat back and waited.
The dim sum slowly made their way to the table. Among the first to arrive was the wrapped lotus leaf pork sticky rice.
This is one of my favorite dim sum dishes, and looking at it here in the steamer basket, the lotus leaf didn't look like it was steamed for long period of time.
After unwrapping the bundle, my suspicions proved to be true. Even though there was a great deal of minced pork here, the glutinous rice had not been steamed long enough. The grains of rice were still firm and "dry" instead of being "chewy" and slightly sticky. Aside from being just slightly undercooked, this had excellent flavor.
Next to arrive were the vegetable potstickers.
Plump and full of vegetables, these potstickers had the required chewy skin although the bottoms were a bit overcooked. I don't like it when they taste burnt.
Next came the pan fried daikon cakes.
To prepare this, daikon is first grated then mixed with ground shrimp, ground pork and various seasonings before being steamed. The "cake" is then cut and pan fried to order. To somehow make up for the slightly overdone potstickers, these were perfect -- slightly crisp outside, moist and tender inside. Add some chilli sauce, and these were even better.
Pork shui mai with dried shiitake mushrooms.
When these arrived at the table, I knew they were going to taste good. Cutting into one, I found that they were half cooked. There was lots of lean cubes of pork (not minced pork) inside that wrapper, but it was still pink. The waitress apologized then took it back to the kitchen and advised that it would be replaced. As she turned to leave the table, she commented, "I'm so sorry. I guess you're the one we pick on today. It always happens for some reason." I laughed as she left the table. You see, besides receiving half cooked shui mai, when the pot of tea arrived at the table, the water inside was lukewarm. It was definitely not hot enough for brewing tea.
As the shui mai made their way back to the kitchen, the shrimp dumplings emerged.
As the waitress set the basket down on the table, I curiously peered inside it. Three translucent dumplings appeared to be stuffed full of shrimp. After taking a bite, and then another, I was impressed. Perfectly steamed, slippery dumpling skins were filled with large succulent shrimp until each was almost ready to burst. Excellent!
Finally, another one of my favorites appeared at the table -- steamed bbq pork buns.
For this classic dim sum dish, you'll often find soft and fluffy bread surrounding savory bits of bbq pork (char siu). Splitting this one in half, I found this.
After taking the first bite, I discovered that this tasted more like hoisin sauce than Chinese-style bbq pork. Sweet and sticky, the lean chunks of bbq pork were tender and the filling to bun ratio was perfect. I just wanted the filling to taste more like char siu than anything else.
And finally, the last item to make an appearance at the table were these crispy shrimp Chinese chive wontons.
Resembling "cakes" more than the wonton I was used to, the crisp, pillowy skins were filled with lots of Chinese chives (garlic chives) and shrimp. I liked the presentation here as the dish had lots of character as well as flavor. The dipping sauce was used sparingly to provide an additional layer of salty flavor to this already well seasoned wonton.
As I was getting ready to leave, my waitress arrived at my table with another basket filled with shui mai. As she proceeded to apologize for the delay, I explained that it wasn't necessary for her to give me another basket, as I was already full and ready to leave. She again apologized, returned the basket of shui mai to the kitchen and brought my check. Looking over the check, I realized that she had removed the charge for the original basket of uncooked shui mai.
The dim sum here at Monsoon was flavorful, but a little expensive when compared to the prices I pay back home. Though there were a couple of mis-steps with the cooking, overall, I found the food to be slightly better than average tastewise and I have to say that there was no skimping on the ingredients either. Lots of whole shrimp, lean chunks of pork, and fresh vegetables found their place in each dim sum offering. If they can iron out all the rough spots, I predict the weekend dim sum brunch will be just as popular the nightly dinners.
Monsoon
615 19th Avenue E
Seattle, Washington
Telephone: 206.325.2111
website
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