Sam’s pot stickers are perfectly browned on the bottom. For a bit of a deal, choose the roast chicken leg ($6.95) - you’ve never seen a chicken leg this brown or this large, sliced perpendicular to the bone. Best of the ones I tried was roast duck, at $11.95 for a generous serving, though about twice what you might pay at a lap mei specialist on Mott or Grand streets. The lap mei is pretty much the same as you get in Chinatown. Among the choices are the usual shrimp and minced beef, in addition to sweet corn, ham, and dried shrimp - note that for an extra dollar, a second filling can be added. The rice noodle rolls ($5.95) are magnificent, freshly made and actually stuffed rather than having the fillings thrown on top, which is the case at places like Yin Ji Chang Fen. You’d have to go to Flushing to get such a big and bouncy scallion pancake ($5.95), which seems a bit expensive and you can get a rough-hewn dowel of deep-fried dough, sometimes referred to as a cruller, to dip into congee (most $8.95 pick the one with pork and thousand-year egg). Minced beef rice noodle rolls come with steamed greens. The walls of lacquered lathe curve when they reach the ceiling, making the room seem like an antique railroad dining car. In the rear is a dining room holding 50 or so seats at tables and counters, in a tile-clad room fancier than most fast casual spots. In short, here’s a chance to examine the workings of a classic Chinese restaurant kitchen. There are also dumpling steamers, a round flat-top griddle, convection ovens, vegetable boilers, and other gleaming equipment. (Don’t worry, there are plenty more ducks hidden away, as well as six or so other varieties of cured meat, they’re just not displayed.) The kitchen includes a lap mei station, heralded by a hanging duck or two. There’s a long and shallow glassed-in kitchen, where chefs hypnotize customers with their dumpling folding and cooking. Next, see a counter with a backlit menu board, where you place your order and receive a number. Stroll in and find a glass case filled with dome-shaped baked bao filled with char siu pork ($2.50), encrusted with sugar on top in the Hong Kong fashion the little custard tarts associated with Macao, dappled brown on top and various other pastries that change on a daily basis. The name of the place is Dim Sum Sam and it opened Saturday, January 29. Now, he’s opened a newer, smaller place on 23rd Street just east of Madison Square that concentrates on dim sum’s “greatest hits” in a modern fast-casual format. The menu also offers a full roster of Cantonese and Chinese-American fare such as a neighborhood Chinese restaurant might do. He now operates four branches in Manhattan, and sells a bewildering 48 kinds of dim sum in a sit-down restaurant setting. Seeing a need for establishments that sell dim sum outside of Chinatowns, Yan founded the Dim Sum Palace chain. He then emigrated to New York City, where he worked at Jean-Georges, Yeah Shanghai, and Red Egg. He’d grown up in Guangdong working in restaurants, and eventually went to Hong Kong to study the sophisticated dim sum there. One of the most vigorous proponents was Sam Yan. Accordingly, dim sum purveyors began springing up in many parts of the city, often in the new fast-casual style. More and more New Yorkers wanted to eat dim sum in the afternoons and evenings, and they wanted it brought to their neighborhoods rather than having to go to Chinatown. While these small-plate morsels - which embraced chicken feet, congee, and an extended collection of preserved meats called lap mei - were most popular on weekend mornings for many diners, dim sum increasingly become an all-day affair in recent years. Gradually, the collection of dim sum favorites expanded to include additions from places like Shanghai and northern China. A distinctive dim sum service, including dumplings and other small plates originating in Guangdong, was served in Manhattan’s Chinatown throughout the 20th century, first in small teahouses and later in behemoth banquet halls with roving carts.
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