Dim Sum in San José

A couple of Sundays ago, eight of us took the 10:30 am bus from Atenas to San José to have dim sum.

We had not eaten dim sum since leaving Vancouver, British Columbia, almost two years ago. Vancouver and the Lower Mainland have the best Asian restaurants, and any restaurant for that matter, in North America. Richmond, south of Vancouver and home to Vancouver International Airport, is where the greatest concentration of Asian restaurants can be found. We used to go for dim sum on the weekends, quite often being the only non-Asians seated. We watched what other tables were ordering and tried many different dishes.

There are quite a few Asian restaurants in San José to choose from. I decided to start with Don Wang, situated on Calle 11, between Avenidas 6 and 8. The phone numbers are 2223-5925 and 2233-6484. They are open from 11:00 am to 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 pm to 10:00 pm Monday to Thursday; and to 11:00 pm on Fridays. On Saturday, their hours are 11:00 am to 11:00 pm and 11:00 am to 10:00 pm on Sunday. English, Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish are spoken. Note: if your browser does not show a link to the menu items on the Don Wang website, click here and then click on the American flag if you want to read it in English.

The restaurant is very nice inside, with a koi pond in the middle. We were seated at one of the two round tables that each seat twelve. Service was prompt and friendly.

We ordered from the dim sum menu. Selections were turnip cake with shrimp sausage, Chinese churro roll, shrimp rolls, sticky rice in lotus leaf, bamboo shrimp, mushroom pork shrimp, and vegetarian dumplings. The menu numbers were 3, 21, 27, 28, 33, 34, 5 and 20 if you want to try any of them. These are on the dim sum menu, not the regular menu. For dessert, we ordered numbers 50 and 51. One of these was sticky rice balls with black sesame seeds.

One of our party did not eat meat and another did not eat pork but we were able to order enough varied items to satisfy everyone. In addition to the dim sum, we also ordered drinks - beer, tea, soda, a fresh fruit drink. Total cost for eight people: $100 - that is just a little over $12 per person and we had so much food we could hardly finish it. I think that is very reasonable.

We want to go back to try some of the Szechuan items - they are spicier. I would highly recommend Don Wang Restaurant. The dim sum compares favourably with what we would receive in Richmond Asian restaurants. One of our friends, also from the Pacific Northwest, liked the sticky rice balls so much he ordered some to take home.

Yum!

Happy Group

 

 

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