Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Dynasty 8, Macau - Decent Dim Sum

Ham shui gok 鹹水角 at Dynasty 8, Conrad Macau
The title says it all. The dim sum at Dynasty 8 was decent. Out of the six things we had, one was excellent (rice paper rolls with barbecued pork), one was good (flaky chicken pastries), three were ok (har gow, ham shui gok, fried sesame balls with custard), and one was weird (soup dumplings), but ok. There's really no need to read past the jump, but if you must...

I'm not usually one to complain about decor - I eat in all sorts of eateries, but I don't get it when the decor doesn't quite gel with the surroundings. Dynasty 8 looks like a cheap unfinished film set. The room is cavernous, the lighting's white (but in red lanterns), and the wood panelling all looks fake (maybe it's real, but it has this off-chocolate colour that just doesn't work under the white lights). I'm no designer, so I'm just going to say that it doesn't add up and makes dining there a little uneasy.

Char siu cheung fun, or rice paper rolls with barbecued pork 叉燒腸粉
On a Monday morning, I posted a pic of this on Instagram and called it "baby brains in a bag". It's really not very pleasant to look at, but if you know what it is, you know it has to look like this to taste good. The rice paper roll wrapper is thin and translucent, so you won't end up with a mouth full of dough. It's just thick enough to keep the contents (in this case, very good char siu) together.

Chicken pastries with mushroom
These were fine - the pastry was a little too delicate, and fell apart as soon as I picked it up. The filling was ok, nothing remarkable.

Goon tong gao, or soup dumplings, 灌湯餃
The weird thing about this is that goon tong gao are supposed to have soup inside not (only) outside the dumpling. The soup was also different from regular goon tong gao, in that it was in a herbal soup rather than a regular consomme-like broth. The dumplings themselves had no soup in them, so they were pretty much just regular dumplings...

Fried balls filled with custard 奶黃煎堆
Both these custard balls and the deep-fried savoury pork dumplings (the ones that look like rugby balls in the opening pic) had doughs that were way too thick, and they were a little too greasy - not great eats in general.

The service is pretty typical of Macanese restaurants for the past few years and what I said in the previous post about The Tasting Room - much more training needed in the days ahead.

Dynasty 8
Conrad Macau
Sands Macau
Cotai Strip
+853 8113 8920
Lunch and dinner daily

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