Having just returned from Asia last week, including a couple of days in Macau where I ate some of the best Dim Sum on the planet, I was invited with my family to eat at the Chinese buffet at one of the Algarve’s shopping centres at the weekend.
Fortunately, I was otherwise engaged, for as much as I enjoy a meal with the family, I am rather choosy when it comes to Chinese food. I have a loathing for buffets at the best of times but the thought of a Chinese buffet is quite repelling.
Here in Portugal sadly, the standard of Chinese food tends to be very poor. The saving grace is one of Europe’s best Cantonese restaurants (The Mandarin) at Estoril Casino and there is also a very good Dim Sum house in Lisbon.
Here in the Algarve we have just two Chinese restaurants worthy of note – Zu Yi on Vilamoura Marina and the more upmarket (if somewhat westernised) Memories of China in Vale do Lobo.
When it comes to Dim Sum, almost all of the dumplings (Sui Mai, Ha Gao etc) served at Chinese restaurants here, or at most high street Chinese restaurants in the UK or elsewhere in Europe, come straight out of a freezer packet – something like the Asian equivalent of a ready-meal from Iceland.
The one exception, in some of the less bad restaurants, is the pan stickers (often called Chinese ravioli).
These are quite easy to make: just take a wonton wrap, fill it with whatever filling you desire, fold it up into a ravioli shape and stick the edges together with a ‘glue’ made from cornstarch and water.
A typical filling is minced pork flavoured with garlic, ginger, spring onion and a touch of soy sauce. Just make a flat edge on the “raviolis” by pressing them down onto a non-stick frying pan and then fill the pan with water until they are half submerged.
Place over the heat and cook until the water has evaporated – around 7 minutes gently boiling – and they will be cooked though with a nice crust underneath.
If yearning for a dim sum fix at lunch time, I often head for the Chinese restaurant on the pedestrian street in Lagoa, where this one and only homemade dim sum offering is well prepared and very tasty.
By PATRICK STUART [email protected]
