Chung Ying have a new dim sum chef. I know this because I bump into Co-owner James Wong on Harborne High Street and he’s very excited to tell me about him. Two days later I see Dan Lee at Hockley Social Club and it’s much the same chat, except Dan drops in the gossip that James can’t keep his mitts off the food in the kitchen. We make plans to record on the pod together and then the producer catches covid and I have a gig to go to and it’s Chinese New Year soon which is as good a chance to write it up as any.
And then the crash happened. Can’t tell you much about it, other than a loud bang and some smoke. If there is an afterlife the glimpse I got was the muddy white of the airbag smashing my head against the passenger window and crunching my rib cage. The seat belt ripping into my beer belly and across my neck. Get out, check we’re both alive. Touch my face to find the source of the blood on my shirt. Sit on the kerb. Struggle to get off the kerb. If I missed the timing of this it’s not through tardiness, it’s because I’m unable to breathe without tears and barely able to wipe my own arse.
And yes, the dim sum is excellent. Better than I can ever remember it being in the twenty or so years I’ve been going. Spicy king prawn steamed dumplings are everything they should be; superb, fluffy char sui buns filled with sticky caramelised chunks of pork. Beautifully sweet siu mai dumplings, always a must order here, loaded with minced pork and prawn, and prawn toast, surely the best way to utilise shit sliced white bread, generous in portion and crustacean, most enjoyed with lashings of chilli oil. There were more, but my pictures are awful and I can’t remember a lot right now through the fog of pain relief.
We eat Sichuan fried chicken and scallops steamed in soy and ginger that are just wonderful. James swings past with a bottle of whisky, whilst I tell him that his portions are too big and break a promise about going to the New Year celebrations. If only. As a dog in the year of the dragon I can expect a transformative and performative year. Here is to hoping.
9/10
