Hung Sum
939 Somerset St. W., 613-680-3228, facebook.com/HungSumRestaurant
Open: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Prices: dim sum small plates $3.75 to $5.65, chef’s specials $2.20 to $8.25
Access: Steps to dining room
Here are the two words you need to know if you go to eat at Hung Sum: “Ho sik.”
That’s concise Cantonese for “the food is delicious,” and you will likely want to pass on the compliment via your server to chef-owner Chef Han Biao Lin, who is back in business serving what is likely Ottawa’s best dim sum after a hiatus of almost two years.
The first Hung Sum served pristine, made-to-order southern Chinese dumplings and more from a Somerset Street West hole-in-the-wall until it closed in November 2015, leaving masses of regulars distraught about where they would get their dim sum fix.
clockwise from top left, scallop and shrimp shumai, ginger beef dumplings and shrimp har gow at Hung Sum restaurant, 939 Somerset St. W
If they were in the know, those regulars began to plan trips to Lin’s new Hung Sum soon after it opened in mid-August this year, taking over the space that El Gusto Mazzola, an Argentinian restaurant, had occupied on Somerset Street West near Preston Street, a few blocks west of the old Hung Sum.
Lin’s new restaurant, whose kitchen has been renovated to fire up two massive woks, is nothing fancy. But it’s still a marked upgrade from its more down-at-the-heels predecessor. The new Hung Sum is fresher-looking, larger and airier.
Chef Han Biao Lin cooks at Hung Sum restaurant, 939 Somerset St. W
A key explanation for the quality of Lin’s dim sum is that he cooks it à la carte, rather than serves it from a cart.
Yes, it’s standard dim-sum practice elsewhere to order one’s spring rolls, egg tarts or chickens’ feet from a passing server who’s wheeling plates of delectables on a cart around the dining room. But Lin — who has cooked at some restaurants that offer cart-service dim sum — says that despite the instant gratification of from-the-cart food, those dishes may have been touring a dining room for hours before being selected, and in the interim they’ve returned to the kitchen to be re-warmed.
Certainly in my experience, the best dim sum comes to the patient diner who orders off of a menu and is rewarded with piping-hot fare that hasn’t degraded during its time on a trolley.
Furthermore, as Lin’s wife May Lee says, Lin, who specialized in making dim sum in southern China before he came to Ottawa in 1994, is “really picky.” I take that to mean he cares about the ingredients in his dim sum, and that he prepares item with attention to detail and even pride.
His food might make you remember that dim sum means “touch the heart” in Cantonese — there’s your second language lesson — even if dim sum elsewhere can taste of mass-production and low effort in the kitchen.
Hung Sum’s menu lists more than 50 dim sum items served all day, plus tea and soft drinks, as the eatery is, for now, unlicensed. Patrons tick off their choices, which land on the table as soon as they’re ready. You may come to respond to the sound of the “It’s ready” bell in the kitchen as did Pavlov’s dogs.
The fare is pretty standard in dim sum circles, with Lin striving to make food impeccably rather than innovatively. For my three recent lunches, he for the most part succeeded.
Safe bets here were any dumplings filled with shrimp, which tended to be loosely chopped and minimally manipulated rather than whizzed into a slurry by a food processor and rendered uni-textural. By all means get the old stand-by har gow dumplings ($4.95 for four), but don’t miss the less-common and refined scallop with shrimp shumai ($5.65 for four).
Shrimp dumplings at Hung Sum
Shrimp and scallop shumai at Hung Sum restaurant
Taro dumplings with pork ($3.75 for three) were a good measure of the kitchen’s standards for deep-frying. Happily, they were cleanly fried and savoury — not the oil bombs that they can be elsewhere. Similarly, chicken wings ($8.25), also available spicy, were spot-on crisp and delicious.
Crispy chicken wings at Hung Sum
Most interesting were the steamed green onion ginger beef dumplings ($4.50 for three), which had been deep-fried to give some crispness to their wrappers and then steamed to bolster their internal juiciness.
Carnivores will probably relish Hung Sum’s pan-fried dumplings with pork fillings ($3.75 for three) and steamed barbecue pork buns ($3.75 for two). The latter were solidly made, if not outstanding, neither too sweet nor marred by overly fatty meat.
For comfort food, I liked the turnip cakes ($3.75 for three) with molten interiors, a bit of colour on the outside and some savoury pop flavour-wise. Congee (rice gruel) here was very, very plain. The dried scallop and meatball congee ($7) we tried was in great need of white pepper, I thought.
Savoury turnip cakes at Hung Sum
Congee at Hung Sum
It’s easy for dim sum to be a starch- and protein-fest. Still, vegetable lovers at our table were pleased by plates of Chinese broccoli with garlic ($6.50) and yu choy in chicken broth ($6.50).
Chinese broccoli with garlic at Hung Sum
Hung Sum does not serve the baked egg tarts that can make great, sweet meal-enders elsewhere. But the egg-yolk steamed buns ($3.75 for three), which hid custard-y, coconut-y fillings, were not bad substitutes.
Egg yolk buns at Hung Sum
A warning for some: there is MSG in some of Hung Sum’s items. But May Lee says her husband uses “as little as possible, less than other restaurants.”
At a Sunday visit when Hung Sum was most busy, service was slower than we would have liked. But during less-busy weekday lunches, the pace of the meal was much improved.
Currently in the kitchen, Lin and his mother-in-law basically handle everything. His wife May told me they want to hire another cook, but finding one who is qualified and speaks Cantonese hasn’t been easy.
This year, my travels have allowed me to try a top-10 dim sum place in Toronto and even a designer dim-sum place in New York where high-end dumplings cost several times their equivalent at Hung Sum. A few years ago, I had fine dim sum at several of Richmond, B.C.’s well-regarded restaurants.
As low-key and smaller-scale as Hung Sum is, I wouldn’t trade it for any of those places.
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